Did Biden just hand Kansas Republicans election gold?

Did Biden just hand Kansas Republicans election gold?
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Independent candidate Greg Orman says he doesn't know who he'll caucus with if he defeats Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in Kansas today — but Vice President Joe Biden is pretty sure it'll be the Democratic Party.

"We have a chance of picking up, you know, an independent who will be with us in the state of Kansas," Biden said in an interview with Connecticut radio station WPLR today.

In fairness to Biden, that's been the conventional wisdom ever since Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race, giving Orman a better shot at unseating Roberts in the reliably Republican state.

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But having long claimed Orman was just a stealth Democratic candidate, the Roberts campaign is taking advantage of Biden's remark, using it against him in the neck-and-neck race. As TPM reports, the campaign has turned Biden's words into a last-minute robocall that's going out to one million voters.

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Nico Lauricella

Nico Lauricella was editor-in-chief at TheWeek.com. He was formerly the site's deputy editor and an editor at The Huffington Post.