July 8, 2019 (Leavenworth, Kan.) — With his wife and five daughters by his side, Kris Kobach announced to a crowd of supporters he will run for U.S. Senate today.

“As everyone in this room knows, the nation is in a period of turmoil. Calls for socialism on the Left continue to get louder and if not for the election of Donald Trump, our nation and our constitution would be in a downward spiral,” Kobach said. “This is a time we must all ask, in JFK’s words, what we can do for our country.”

The former Kansas Secretary of State noted that Leavenworth has always been a launching point for Kansas.

“Thousands of explorers, soldiers and settlers launched their Kansas journeys from Leavenworth, and so it is fitting that we launch this national campaign from this historic spot. If you want to start something really big in Kansas, do it where it all began, in Leavenworth,” he said.

As a Senator, Kobach pledges to be a Senate leader carrying the flag for President Trump on the issue of immigration and helping restore the U.S. Constitution, which he said is now a hollow shell of what the Founding Fathers designed it to be.

“Kansas’s Senator needs to be more than a Republican. He needs to be a constitutionalist,” Kobach said.

A former law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kobach worked as a White House Fellow in the George W. Bush Administration serving as the chief immigration law and border security advisor to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Kobach said the growth of the federal government has crowded out individual liberties, state governments and private organizations. He promised to stand with Senators like Rand Paul to reduce the size and bloat of the federal government.

“This is not a time for a quiet Senator or a Senator who wants to make everyone happy and is afraid to take a stand,” Kobach said. “There is too much at stake. Our national sovereignty is at stake; our constitution is at stake and our economy is at stake. That is why I am running.”

By a wide margin, Kansas voters elected Kris W. Kobach Secretary of State in 2010. During the campaign, he promised to make Kansas elections the most secure in the nation by stopping voter fraud and instituting voter ID — promises he kept. He grew up in Topeka, Kansas, where he graduated as the co-valedictorian of his Washburn Rural High School class. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a doctorate from Oxford University and a law degree from Yale University. He is the co-author of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law and has assisted in the drafting and defense of several other statutes designed to disincentivize illegal immigration.

He currently serves as the general counsel for We Build the Wall, an organization committed to securing the border by building a wall and eliminating the humanitarian crisis at the southern border. He lives on a small farm in rural Douglas County.