May 26, 2009, Kobach announced his candidacy for Kansas Secretary of State. His opponents in the Republican primary were Shawnee County Election Commissioner Elizabeth Ensley and J.R. Claeys, former president of the National Association of Government Contractors. Kobach won the Republican nomination with 50.6% of the vote. Ensley and Claeys finished with 27.0% and 22.4%, respectively. On November 2, 2010, Kobach defeated incumbent Democrat Chris Biggs, 59%–37%. Kobach was endorsed by Tennessee's former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, as well as former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (his former boss at the Dept. of Justice). Joe Arpaio, Arizona's controversial then-Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, campaigned for Kobach as well. Although Kobach's campaign treasurer, Tom Arpke, possessed campaign experience, losing a state senate race in 2008, winning a Salina City Council seat the next year, and a state House seat in 2010, he was found to have under-reported contributions by $35,000 and nearly $43,000 in expenditures in Kobach's 2010 campaign, resulting in a maximum $5,000 fine. Kobach complained that he was being discriminated against because former Republican Governor Bill Graves received a much smaller fine for similar violations. Kobach alleged, "The only real distinction I can see is that I'm a conservative and he's a moderate." The chair of the Kansas Ethics Commission said "The commission does not condone lack of candor before the commission." Commission members questioned Arpke's honesty, a recurrent theme in his subsequent career. When he obtained convictions of Kansans for interstate voting irregularities in 2016, Kobach said, "The fines are "exactly what I wanted to see in cases like this when I made the case before Kansas Legislature that this authority was needed ... A $5,000 fine is very significant, and hopefully something no one would want to have to pay", he said. The 2012 Republican Party platform included self-deportation as a response to illegal immigration to the United States. Kobach proposed the measure, stating "If you really want to create a job tomorrow, you can remove an illegal alien today." In 2013, the League of Women Voters joined a challenge to Kobach's "proof of citizenship" requirements for Kansas Voters. In response to a caller on his March 1, 2015 radio show, Kobach agreed that it would not be "a huge jump" for the Obama administration to call for an end to the prosecution of all African-American suspects. The Kansas Democratic Party decried Kobach's comment as "hate speech"