Morning Digest: Kansas Republican who claimed Everest heroics again exposed as fabricator

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● KS-02: It seems that Steve Watkins, a Republican who is locked in a competitive race for Kansas' 2nd Congressional District, has wildly exaggerated even more details about his life. Until recently, Watkins’ website had touted his heroic leadership in 2015, when his expedition to climb Mount Everest was aborted because of a devastating earthquake in Nepal. The site had quoted Everest outfitter Guy Cotter saying he'd relied on Watkins' "heroic leadership amid the chaos," but Cotter told the Associated Press that he'd never said that.​

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​Instead, Cotter told them that "[t]here was not really anything heroic to be able to do," adding that they "all felt quite hopeless ... because we were not there, where all the injured and dying people were, through that event. We were actually up on the mountain, so there was very little we could contribute." The Watkins campaign removed those words attributed to Cotter from their site, with the candidate insisting he had just "captured the statement, to the best of my memory."

Watkins has also boasted that he competed in the 2015 and 2018 Iditarod dogsled race in Alaska to emphasize that he was "an accomplished athlete and explorer." However, while Watkins did race both years, two of his competitors in this year's contest told the Associated Press they believed he was doing it as a publicity stunt for his congressional campaign. Four-time winner Jeff King said that Watkins’ self-portrayal as an adventurer was "a gigantic fallacy.”

Watkins was forced to drop out of Iditarod this year when he was too far behind. Musher Tara Cicatello, who was at the back of the pack with Watkins, said that his main concern with leaving the race was how it would impact the publicity for his congressional campaign. She adds that he left his dogs with racers that were already overwhelmed with other dogs, saying that, "People were irritated with Steve because they were doing more work for his dogs than he was."

The AP report also cast some doubt on Watkins' ties to Kansas, a state he left after high school and only returned to last year. While Watkins said Kansas "was always home in my heart," records reveal he had applied 11 times for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend between 2002 and 2015; that payment is for people who have lived in Alaska for a full year and plan to remain indefinitely. The AP says that property records show Watkins has two condos in Alaska, with one purchased in 2015.

Last week, a Kansas City Star investigation led Watkins to also admit that he'd never owned or built up a defense contracting company, despite what he'd said on the campaign trail. That admission came as several senior company officials said they didn't even remember Watkins, who worked as a contractor.