Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt wins Republican Senate primary, blocking Greitens comeback

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, thwarting embattled former Gov. Eric Greitens’ electoral comeback attempt with a campaign fueled by a wave of politically charged lawsuits.

Republicans now head into the general election with a standard bearer many are confident can easily dispatch the Democratic nominee. Schmitt has cast himself as a key ally for conservatives in a struggle with liberals on everything from taxes to gun rights to critical race theory.

Control of the evenly divided Senate may hinge on the outcome of the race. Republicans are widely expected to make gains in Congress in November as President Joe Biden struggles with poor approval ratings and the highest inflation in decades raises prices across the nation.

The Associated Press called the Republican race for Schmitt at 9 p.m. Schmitt defeated Greitens a day after former President Donald Trump issued a late dual endorsement of “ERIC,” a split decision between the two candidates that allowed the former president to claim credit if either won.

Schmitt also beat Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a six-term congresswoman who had the endorsement of Sen. Josh Hawley, as well as three other candidates who mounted serious campaigns. Trump had publicly ruled out endorsing Hartzler in mid-July, a move that helped elevate Schmitt as Greitens’ main opponent.

At 10:30 p.m., Schmitt had 45.7% of the vote, Hartzler had 22.4% and Greitens had 19.1%, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office. Rep. Billy Long had 4.3%, Mark McCloskey had 2.9% and state Sen. Dave Schatz had 1.1%.

“I’ve always been a fighter and as your attorney general I have fought in court to protect your liberties from ridiculous mask mandates, illegal vaccine mandates and President Biden’s all-out assault on your liberties,” Schmitt told supporters at his St. Louis party after he won the race.

Addressing a jubilant crowd, Schmitt said, “We need America first fighters who will advance the America first agenda.”

Schmitt’s Democratic opponent in the general election will be Trudy Busch Valentine, a philanthropist and beer family heiress from St. Louis.

He is also likely to face John Wood, a Republican who is running an independent campaign backed by Missouri Stands United, a PAC bankrolled by former Sen. John Danforth, who has given at least $10 million to the effort. On Monday, Wood said he had gathered 22,000 signatures to appear on the November ballot, far more than the 10,000 required.

At Schmitt’s watch party in St. Louis, a buoyant mood grew as it became clear he had the lead.

“It takes a tough guy like Eric Schmitt to get in there and fight for us every day,” St. Louis businessman John Brunner, who unsuccessfully ran for governor against Greitens in 2016, told the crowd.

Some Republicans had braced for a hard-fought struggle in Missouri if GOP voters chose Greitens, who resigned amid allegations of sexual assault in 2018 and has been accused by his ex-wife of physical and emotional abuse of her and their young children.

They have much more faith that Schmitt, a 47-year-old former state senator who has been Missouri’s top attorney since 2019, will keep both of the state’s Senate seats under Republican control.

But as of 10:00 p.m. Greitens had not made the same call.

Greitens delivered a brief speech at his election night party in Chesterfield, thanking the people who attended and telling them to go home with “strength and pride.” His speech talked about the lies, fear and cruelty his voters faced.

He did not acknowledge Schmitt as the winner and didn’t explicitly concede the race.

“God has a plan,” Greitens said. “It doesn’t always work on our timeline. But it does work on his. And sometimes we have to practice patience. What I can tell you, is that I love you guys. I love you guys. And I will continue to work for you, continue to fight for you, continue to serve you every single day of my life.”

Missouri friendly to Republicans

Schmitt is entering the general election race in a state that has become increasingly hostile terrain for Democrats at every level. The last time Missouri Democrats won a Senate race was in 2012, when incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill defeated Republican Todd Akin, who infamously spoke about “legitimate rape” in an interview. McCaskill lost her seat six years later to Republican Josh Hawley.

Only one Democrat currently holds statewide office, Auditor Nicole Galloway.

“We quickly began to realize this cycle is different and I think we all know it is different. There is no tomorrow,” Kay Hoflander, a past chair of the Missouri Republican Party who chairs the Women for Schmitt coalition, said at a Schmitt rally last week. “The race is right now … it is not in November.”

Schmitt and other Republicans will likely immediately set out to link whoever wins the Democratic nomination to Biden and the country’s high inflation. But many Democrats – and independent voters – are alarmed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and may be more likely to turn out to vote against Republicans in November.

Schmitt – like every other major Republican in the race – took a strict anti-abortion line. As attorney general, he signed a legal opinion minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that put Missouri’s near-total abortion ban into effect.

If Schmitt wins in November, he will join a line of Missouri state attorneys general from both parties who have gone on to higher office. Hawley was the state attorney general when he beat McCaskill.

Over the past two years, Schmitt built a statewide reputation and, eventually, won over Republicans through a seemingly endless string of legal challenges against the Biden administration over everything from vaccine mandates to immigration policy. Schmitt was criticized for using the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for political purposes, though Schmitt and his allies say he’s simply doing his job by fighting government overreach.

But combined with other lawsuits targeting school districts and municipalities over mask mandates, the strategy raised his profile as he worked to sell himself as an aggressive fighter in the eyes of conservatives.

“I like the fact that he went and tried to sue the Columbia Public Schools,” said David Avery, a Schmitt supporter from Columbia. “I strongly believe the mask mandate is one of the worst things that could ever happen to our kids.”

Many of the pandemic lawsuits were dropped as schools and cities lifted their restrictions as case counts fell, though Schmitt still claimed victory.

Greitens appeared to be the front-runner for much of the race but several polls in the final two weeks of the race showed Schmitt surging and the former governor fading. Trump’s statement about Hartzler, the polls and Greitens very public child custody case, all helped add to a sense of momentum surrounding Schmitt’s campaign in the final days of the race.

“I think that people, at the end of the day, really don’t want elected officials who bring scandal to their state,” said Jean Evans, a former executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.

Schmitt told reporters last week that his ascendance was due in part to voters being reminded about the allegations against Greitens. “This is the big leagues and Eric Greitens trying to revive his reputation with a Senate run and I think voters are recognizing that and that the seat’s too important,” he said.

Greitens had hinted he would mount a primary challenge of Republican Sen. Roy Blunt before Blunt announced in March 2021 that he would retire. Greitens instead found himself in the middle of a large primary field that many thought would aid his candidacy by dividing the opposition to him.

If Greitens had won, it would have marked his first victory in a political comeback four years in the making. It would have also instantly made Missouri one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the country. Democrats would have likely poured extensive resources into Missouri in a bid to recapture one of the state’s Senate seats after McCaskill’s loss to Hawley in 2018.

Just a week ago, Greitens was confidently predicting victory. His campaign was dismissing polling showing him in third place as fake.

“All over this state patriots are stepping up … they’re stepping up to say the Republican Party needs to be an America-first MAGA party,” Greitens said during a recent campaign stop in Kansas City, referring to Trump’s slogan Make America Great Again.

Even in defeat, Greitens showed just how committed much of the party remains to Trump – and how the former governor could still command a base of support despite a host of scandals. But in the end, he wasn’t able to match Schmitt, who successfully blended MAGA rhetoric with support from establishment Republicans – effectively echoing Trump without Greitens’ baggage.

He was aided by a well-funded political action committee and an effort by some of his supporters to create a PAC specifically targeting Greitens.

The group – funded in part by Schmitt supporters Rex Sinquefield and August Busch III – spent more than $8 million going after Greitens over Sheena Greitens’ claims of domestic abuse, freeing up Schmitt’s other PAC to spend money to support him and attacking Hartzler. His PAC had $5 million more than Hartzler’s PAC at the end of June.

Hartzler defeated

Schmitt’s biggest rival besides Greitens had been Hartzler, whose campaign suffered a setback after Trump told his supporters on July 8 that they could “forget about” the congresswoman. Hartzler, Trump said, didn’t have what it takes to take on Democrats and what he called RINOS – Republicans in name only.

Hartzler is an ardent social conservative, who made a mark on Missouri as a spokeswoman for the successful 2004 campaign to pass a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Her Senate campaign emphasized her Christian faith, support for the military and opposition to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.

While she was always among the top three Republicans vying for the nomination, according to publicly-available polling, Hartzler never appeared to truly break through into the lead. She led only once, in a single survey from March, according to a database maintained by RealClearPolitics.

Hartzler’s loss in the primary means she will leave Congress early next year.

“It has been my greatest honor to serve Missourians in Congress, fight for them, champion them, and work to make life better for our great people,” Hartzler said in an email message to supporters last week.

Long will join Hartzler in leaving the U.S. House in January. The southwest Missouri congressman, first elected to Congress in 2010, had been clear throughout his campaign that his chance at victory depended on securing an endorsement from Trump that never arrived.

Long frequently sang the former president’s praises as he appeared at events and forums across the state, often with McCloskey and Schatz, the other two lower-tier competitive candidates.

McCloskey mounted a rhetorically fiery campaign that attempted to capitalize on his fame among conservatives after he and his wife, Patricia, were photographed in 2020 brandishing guns in the yard of their tony St. Louis home as Black Lives Matter demonstrators passed by. McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault but was later pardoned by Republican Gov. Mike Parson.

Schatz branded himself a “Reagan Republican” and ran a traditional GOP campaign focused on his success as a business owner and his accomplishments in the state Senate. But Schatz, who a spokesman once said is “a conservative, but not angry about it,” failed to connect with voters.

The Star’s Ella McCarthy contributed reporting