Pat Roberts

And in every case, they didn't.

And I remember one with Pat Roberts, who was then the U.S. senator.

The New York Times had revealed that he didn't actually live in the state, which is always a problem.

Kansas sends people to Washington like Bob Dole, and they basically become, you know, they don't like to come back to the state.

It's, you know, it's.

they find the life on the East Coast so much more attractive.

And this had apparently happened with Pat Roberts.

And he listed his address as a voter, a house in Dodge City that was owned by some friends of his.

We'll save that story for another day.

But yeah, the whole game, I'm watching us just get throttled on the field and look up into the press box, and I can see Bill Snyder, John Weefald, and Senator Pat Roberts sitting in an open-air box, Snyder's taking notes, and I thought, son of a bitch, he's coming back.

And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

Went on Bill Snyder 2.0. And we are far, far away from that.

This is actually film number three.

So in 2020, 2014, Pat Roberts was running against the so-called independent Greg Orman for the same U.S. Senate seat.

And if you all call it this time, the polls were really tight.

It looked intense.

Democrat hasn't won it since 1932.

In 2020, we were told, hey, maybe there's a chance.

Barbara Beaulieu in 2014, it was Pat Roberts and Greg Orman.

Hey, there's a chance.

Kansas had the biggest one in there, and it goes back to a twenty fourteen where in October, the independent/Democratic candidate polled even, ended up being-- losing by double digits.

But that race was different in that Republican-- You had Pat Roberts was also a-asleep at the switch, just like Roger Marshall.

He woke up and then just simply ran against his opponent as a Democrat with the Democrat in the White House But there's no Democrat in the White House this time.

So I think it is harder to-- This is why I think it's, you know, it was easier for Fischer to get out of her bind with Dana Osborne last cycle 'cause Biden was in the White House.

Now, it doesn't mean that polls are gonna miss by 15 points this cycle.

I think a lot of pollsters are trying to make sure they don't mess up this time.

And again, 2014, you had an enthusiastic Republican base and it generally, even if you had an unenthusiastic list of supporters for Pat Roberts in Kansas specifically.

But it is a reminder that polling averages are not election results, and polling averages are there to mislead you.

We've seen this, this movie before.

In 20, um, what was it? 2014, Pat Roberts and Greg Orman, and you'll remember Orman was a, was the independent-

Yeah

...

but the Democrat got off the ballot.

So it was basically a head-to-head between a Republican and a guy who was actually a Democrat but didn't call himself that.

Um, and everybody, like, like the national media thought Pat Roberts was on the ropes.

He's on the ropes.

2014.

Final RCP average in 2014 had independent Greg Noor Orman ahead of Republican Pat Roberts by a point.

Toss-up.

Roberts won by 11 points.

Mm-hmm.

Right? You think of, like, the Pat Roberts race.

You think about Dr. Marshall's last race, even to a certain extent, Jerry Moran's race.

Like, it's always a panic at the end.