COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri voters are set to nominate a Republican candidate for governor and other statewide offices, likely deciding the next leaders of a strongly conservative state currently without any Democratic statewide officials.
GOP gubernatorial candidates include Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel. Former President Donald Trump endorsed all three.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson is barred from seeking reelection by term limits.
Here’s a breakdown of Missouri’s top statewide Republican primaries:
The GOP fight for the governorship appears to be between Ashcroft, who comes from a Missouri political dynasty, and Kehoe, a powerhouse in fundraising who was endorsed by Parson to be his successor.
Ashcroft has considerable name recognition after serving as secretary of state since 2017. Ashcroft’s father, John Ashcroft, served as Missouri governor, a U.S. senator and U.S. attorney general under former President George W. Bush.
As secretary of state, Ashcroft withdrew Missouri last year from a bipartisan, multistate effort aimed at ensuring the accuracy of voter rolls that has found itself in the crosshairs of conspiracy theories fueled by Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Ashcroft has also long advocated for Missouri’s photo identification requirement for voters as a way to prevent voter fraud, although he has also maintained Missouri already had secure elections.
He’s also played a sometimes contentious role in ballot measures. Most recently, he sought to describe an abortion rights amendment that will be on November’s ballot as allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth.” Appeals court judges ruled Ashcroft’s language was politically partisan and rewrote the summary of the ballot measure that will appear before voters.
Kehoe and his supporters have been pouring money into his campaign and advertisem*nts to make up for Ashcroft’s lead in name recognition. Roughly a week before Tuesday’s primary, his campaign reported raising $4.2 million over the election cycle, more than three times what Ashcroft raised.
Pro-Kehoe political action committee American Dream PAC also brought in more than $7 million, more than double the close to $3 million raised by Committee 4 Liberty, which backs Ashcroft.
Kehoe assumed the lieutenant governor’s seat in 2018. He was appointed to the position following a government reshuffling when former Gov. Eric Greitens resigned in the face of potential impeachment that year. Mike Parson was serving as lieutenant governor but ascended to the governor’s office when Greitens left. Parson then tapped Kehoe to replace him as lieutenant governor. Kehoe had been serving as the second-highest ranking state senator at the time.
Kehoe was first elected to the state Senate in 2010 after years as a car dealership owner. As majority floor leader, he oversaw legislation that restricted unions and that Republicans said would help local businesses.
Eigel is the dark horse of the Republican gubernatorial primary. Although both his official campaign and the pro-Eigel PAC outraised Ashcroft, he’s still significantly behind Kehoe in fundraising. He also lacks the name identification both Ashcroft and Kehoe built as statewide elected officials. Eigel has only ever won election to the state Senate to represent his suburban St. Louis district. His strategy appears to be marketing himself as the most conservative candidate, at one point using a flamethrower to light a pile of boxes on fire that he later was a metaphor for how he would attack the “woke liberal agenda.”
Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought off a challenge from Trump lawyer Will Scharf to clinch the GOP nomination and, presumably, keep his seat.
Tuesday was voters’ first chance to weigh in on Bailey, another Parson appointee named to the position after Eric Schmitt resigned to become a U.S. senator in 2022.
Big money groups with connections to key Republican campaign financier Leonard Leo had backed Scharf. Both candidates take conservative positions, but Bailey has gone through the Missouri political system while much of Scharf’s career has been in Washington.
Secretary of State Ashcroft’s and Lt. Gov. Kehoe’s political ambitions leave their seats open and have drawn super-sized fields of Republican hopefuls.
GOP secretary of state candidates include: state Sens. Mary Elizabeth Coleman and Denny Hoskins, state Reps. House Speaker Dean Plocher and Adam Schwadron, Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller, and political newcomers Jamie Corley and Valentina Gomez. The depth of the primary field means a winner could emerge with a small fraction of the vote.
The lieutenant governor’s GOP primary is less crowded, with state Sens. Lincoln Hough and Holly Thompson Rehder, as well as Dave Wasinger, a certified public accountant and attorney at St. Louis law firm Wasinger Daming.
