Live updates: Contentious Missouri Senate primaries reach finish line as polls close

9:06 p.m. — Eric Schmitt wins Republican nomination

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, blocking embattled former Gov. Eric Greitens attempt at a political comeback. The Associated Press called the race for Schmitt at 9 p.m.

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At Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine’s watch party, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones told reporters Schmitt “doesn’t believe half the stuff that he talks about that he believes on TV.”

“This is an act. And so do you want to send someone to the U.S. Senate who actually believes in what they say or somebody who’s playing a game?” Jones said.

8:35 p.m. — Long calls Schmitt to concede, race not called

Rep. Billy Long, a Republican candidate, tweeted that he had called Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to concede.

The Associated Press has not called the race for Schmitt, but he holds a commanding lead in early results, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office.

Long, who represents southwest Missouri, had been unable to crack into the top tier of candidates. He spent much of his campaign focused on winning former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, which he ultimately failed to do.

8:15 p.m. — Brunner expects Schmitt to win

Just before 8 p.m., St. Louis businessman John Brunner, who unsuccessfully ran for Missouri governor against Eric Greitens in 2016, told a crowded room of Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s supporters at the Sheraton Westport Chalet Hotel that he expected Schmitt to win the Republican primary in a landslide.

“My prediction is this is going to be a shorter night than a longer one,” Brunner told the crowd, which erupted in cheers. “I think we’re going to see a landslide coming through here pretty darn quick.”

One supporter, David Eidelman of Clayton, said he felt that Schmitt had the best chance to win in November. He said he worried that Greitens’ abuse allegations would hurt Republicans’ chances in the general election.

“There was a lot of negative publicity about Greitens and his past,” he said.

7:55 p.m. — Hartzler, Busch Valentine, Kunce wait for results

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a Republican candidate, arrived at her watch party in Garden City, Mo., just after 7:30 p.m. and was greeting, hugging and sharing personal moments with guests.

“We believe in Vicky and we know she can do this and will do it well,” said Jodie Huston, a friend of Hartzler. “We’ve known her forever and ever, we go to church with her.”

At Democratic candidate Trudy Busch Valentine’s watch party at a union hall St. Louis, the mood was calm. Supporters were trickling in as upbeat music played.

Kevyn Schroeder, a former nurse, said she had known Busch Valentine since elementary school.

“She’s a very honest person. She’s a very compassionate person. She’s very caring and she has lived her whole life doing good for people under the radar until now,” Schroeder said.

Meanwhile, the other major Democratic candidate, Lucas Kunce, posted a tweet showing him playing what appears to be Magic: The Gathering, a digital card game.

“While I wait...” he wrote.

7:20 p.m. — Updates from Greitens’ watch party

As polls closed in Missouri, people began trickling in to the election night party for former Gov. Eric Greitens at Epic Empowerment in Chesterfield.

People gathered around tables in the gym, checking their phones underneath a big screen projection of a Greitens for Missouri sign set up in front of a large cross. At about 7:30, the screen switched over to Fox News showing Tucker Carlson decried the Black Lives Matter movement.

Some of the about 50 supporters were spread out through the gym on nibbling on food from a big appetizer buffet — it had cheese, crackers and fruit — or picked up alcohol at a cash bar.

7:00 p.m. — Polls close in Missouri

The bitter Missouri Republican and Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate are drawing to a close Tuesday evening, ending more than a year of political combat over who will represent each party in the contest to replace retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunt.

Polls closed in Missouri at 7 p.m. and results are set to begin trickling in from around the state.

On the Republican side, former Gov. Eric Greitens, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt or Rep. Vicky Hartzler are battling for the nomination. In the Democratic primary, either former Marine Lucas Kunce or St. Louis philanthropist and beer family heiress Trudy Busch Valentine are likely to win.

Whoever wins each party’s nomination will face off in the Nov. 8 general election.

Missourians turned out to vote less than a day after former President Donald Trump issued a long-anticipated endorsement in the race. But instead of choosing one of the candidates, he said he was supporting “ERIC.”

Schmitt and Greitens both promptly claimed the endorsement for themselves.

“We are going to have a fantastic MAGA victory today against the establishment,” Greitens said in a video he posted on Twitter Tuesday. “At the end of the day, love beats lies. At the end of the day our faith is going to beat their fear.”

Greitens has been critical of his opponents, calling them RINOs, short for “Republicans in name only,” while Schmitt has directly highlighted allegations that Greitens abused his family.

“[He’s] abused his wife. He’s abused his kid. He’s a predator,” Schmitt said Monday at a local Republican Party office in Fenton. “He quit on the state. He quit on you before he’ll quit on you again because it doesn’t get any easier in Washington. Or are you gonna choose the proven fighter? Somebody who’s had your back from day one, and will always have your back to save this country?”

On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, issued a late endorsement of Kunce. Busch Valentine has the backing of much of Missouri’s Democratic establishment, however, including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City.

Busch Valentine entered the race around a year after Kunce, but quickly raised her status in the race through investing more than $5 million of her own money in her campaign.

“After all the times that I’ve been in the streets now,” Busch Valentine said at a campaign stop Monday at a diner in St. Louis. “The learning about people, the listening across Missouri to people’s issues, to their worries, to their hopes and dreams. It’s been so incredible for me. And I have learned and learned and I have grown and grown.”

Kunce has argued his campaign offers a way to take back power from a political ruling class that doesn’t care about normal Missourians. He has relied on small-dollar donors from both inside and outside the state to build a competitive campaign operation.

“I’ll tell you what I hear. I hear people say say no matter who I vote for, Democrat or Republican, I feel like I have no power,” Kunce at a rally in Columbia last week.

At the same event, Kunce said for Democrats to win in Missouri, “you’ve got to do something extra … you’ve got to be different.”

The Republican and Democratic nominees may also be competing against John Wood, a Republican running as an independent. Wood, a former investigator on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, is supported by former Sen. John Danforth.

Wood needed to collect at least 10,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot. On Monday, he turned in 22,000 to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office, which has until Aug. 30 to verify them.

The final public poll in the GOP race placed Schmitt at 34% support, Greitens at 21% and Hartzler at 18%. The other major candidates – Rep. Billy Long, St. Louis attorney Mark McCloskey and state Sen. Dave Schatz – were all in the single digits. The poll, by the Trafalgar Group, was conducted between Saturday and Monday.

The last significant poll in the Democratic showed Busch Valentine at 39% and Kunce at 35%. St. Louis real estate broker Spencer Toder was at 3%, according to the poll from Emerson College and The Hill. The survey was conducted July 21-23.

Greitens resigned as governor in 2018 amid allegations of sexual assault and blackmail, but is attempting a political comeback. Earlier this year, his ex-wife accused him in an affidavit of physically and emotionally abusive behavior toward her and their young children. Greitens has been attacked relentlessly in recent weeks over the new allegations and he has appeared to drop in the polls.

Schmitt has surged in recent days as Greitens has fallen. He built a statewide reputation over the past two years by using the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to repeatedly sue the Biden administration. He also filed dozens of lawsuits challenging school and local mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.

Hartzler, who has the backing of Sen. Josh Hawley, ran a campaign focused on her social conservatism and support for the military. Her bid appeared to suffer a significant blow in mid-July when Trump issued a statement denigrating her campaign and saying he wouldn’t endorse her.

Among Democrats, the race between Busch Valentine and Kunce has grown intense. It’s a rare highly competitive Senate primary for Missouri Democrats. Every Democratic nominee for Senate since at least 1998 has won with at least 66% of the vote

Kunce, of Independence, has run a populist campaign. He’s promised to target Wall Street excesses and fight a political elite he says benefit while working class Missourians suffer. He has made Busch Valentine, with her extensive family wealth, into his foil.

Busch Valentine has run a more mainstream Democratic campaign that she has largely self funded. She has done some traditional in-person campaigning, but has largely relied on a massive TV presence to quickly build statewide support for her campaign.

The Star’s Ella McCarthy and Emily Hood contributed reporting