Going after Greitens

Daniel Desrochers

If there is a monetary amount that would ensure that former Gov. Eric Greitens does not win the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate next month, then the Show Me Values PAC appears determined to find it.

In less than a month, the PAC, created to attack Greitens, has allocated $7.4 million in television advertising, text messaging and direct mail to voters. They’ve aired television ads criticizing his gubernatorial visit to China and highlighting Sheena Greitens allegations of physical and emotional abuse.

The PAC has only disclosed how they’ve spent around $6.1 million of the money they have allocated through July 20. Of that $6 million, the PAC has spent around $4.1 million (69% of its money) on media production and distribution. It spent another $1.3 million on digital media and texting. The rest has gone to direct mail to voters and creating a website.

So far, we only know a sliver of where the money is coming from. The PAC filed its monthly report for June, but only had four donors between when it was created on June 2 and the end of the month: St. Louis investor and mega-donor Rex Sinquefield ($1 million), Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts ($250,000), beer heir August Busch III ($100,000) and the American Society of Anesthesiologists ($100,000). Busch, 85, is the step-brother of Democratic candidate Trudy Busch Valentine.

Both Busch and Sinquefield have also donated to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s campaign. Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, previously served in the Republican Governor’s Association with Greitens. Sinquefield has donated to Rickett’s gubernatorial campaign.

The fact that a well-funded PAC is attacking Greitens has freed up Schmitt and U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler to go after each other. It isn’t much of a fair fight. Schmitt’s PAC, Save Missouri Values, reported raising more than $5 million more than Hartzler’s PAC had raised through June.

Meanwhile, Greitens has had to figure out a response to the attacks against him. Mostly, he’s painted it as a coordinated effort by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Schmitt to take him down (the PACs largest disclosed donor, Sinquefield, has supported both McConnell and Schmitt).

Earlier this week, he put out a video going after the prosecutors who brought charges against him when he was governor. He’s also been pushing a forecasting model by Decision Desk HQ, which showed him beating Democrat Lucas Kunce 9.5 times out of 10.

That’s just one model that assumes he will win the Republican primary. FiveThirtyEight, another site, predicts Schmitt will win the primary and has him beating Kunce 9.7 times out of 10, which means they have Schmitt winning the primary over Greitens.

The race remains a toss-up though there is chatter about Schmitt having the late momentum (Hartzler was hurt by a stern Trump non-endorsement). But Missouri is a difficult state to poll — particularity in a crowded primary — and most polls have shown the race statistically tied between Greitens, Schmitt and Hartzler.

The question is whether Show Me Values can drag Greitens popularity down among Republicans enough that either Schmitt or Hartzler can sneak through.

More from Missouri

Democrats hold just one statewide office in Missouri — state auditor. Current Auditor Nicole Galloway is stepping down and two Republicans are vying to flip her seat and give their party control of all of the constitutional offices in Missouri. The Republican race is between state Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick and state Rep. David Gregory.

Here are headlines from across the state:

And across Kansas

Proponents of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the guaranteed right to an abortion in Kansas are outspending those attempting to keep the language in the Kansas Constitution. Already, $10 million has poured into the campaign over the controversial ballot measure — which will be the first time voters weigh-in on abortion rights in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminating the federal right to an abortion.

The latest from Kansas City

In Kansas City …

Have a news tip? Send it along to ddesrochers@kcstar.com

Odds and ends

Biden has COVID

The White House on Thursday announced that President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 after a trip last week to the Middle East and a Wednesday trip to Somerset, Massachusetts.

Biden is experiencing mild symptoms — runny nose, tiredness and a dry cough — and has started taking Paxlovid. He’s been vaccinated and boosted twice. The White House put out a video of Biden standing on the balcony, tie-less, in a blue blazer with the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, saying that he was doing well and thanking people for their concern.

He was slated to go to Pennsylvania and Delaware today. Instead, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said he will participate in meetings through phone and video calls.

Johnson County Sheriff

Amanda Adkins, the likely Republican nominee to take on U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, put out her first television ad this week, going after President Joe Biden and highlighting inflation, high gas prices and crime. One of the clips in the ad showed Adkins walking with Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden.

Hayden, who has made unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, has been conducting an investigation in Johnson County for months. This week, the county’s top lawyer revealed that Hayden wanted to move beyond investigation and play a direct role in how elections are conducted in Johnson County. He offered to have his staff collect ballots from drop boxes in unmarked vehicles and a member of his staff offered to have officers in the room when ballots were being counted.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quickly pounced on the information, using it to highlight that Adkins has not said whether she would have voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

House crime

Much of Davids attempt to hold her seat have been focused on supporting congressional attempts to address the problems bugging voters. She’s pushed for measures — like suspending the federal gas tax — that would attempt to relieve some of the financial pressures people are facing. That said, there’s little she, as one member of Congress, can do to push those policies through (and questions about how much suspending the federal gas tax would actually help people).

Now add crime to the list. Before getting COVID-19, Biden was slated to head to Pennsylvania to talk about his Safer America Plan, as Republicans have attacked Democrats over their support for protests intended to hold police officers accountable for abuse of power and discriminatory policing practices. Republicans have jumped on some of the language used by activists — phrases like “defund the police” — in order to paint their opposition as soft on crime.

Adkins campaign has attempted to make a similar argument in Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, but with relatively low crime rates in the area, she’s instead focused on drug use in the community and accidental fentanyl overdoses. That’s packs a two-fold political message for Republicans, where they can talk about tough-on-crime polices while also evoking illegal immigration at the border, an issue that helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency.

Happy Friday

Read an article from 1950 about Ernest Hemingway spending time in New York City. It’s very, very hot in D.C. Here’s a recipe for ice cream. And here’s James Taylor singing a Carole King song.

Enjoy your weekend.

Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent
Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent

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