MOScout Daily Update: Long "Leaning Heavily" - Ratliff for McCloskey - Trump Nod Worth 37% of Vote? - 7-1 Scenario - FRA Talk and more...

Lincoln Days Big Winner: Greitens?

One Republican wonders if the weekend’s big winner wasn’t Eric Greitens.  He skipped the Lincoln Days shindig to post videos of himself in Arizona “on the front lines” of the election audit.  Why would he be a winner?  Because the anti-Greitens folks have thus far been unable to limit the number of candidates.  And it seems more and more likely that at least one more congressional candidate will hop in.  Quite possibly two. (See below).

Jeff Smith writes about this concern in the Missouri Independent comparing the increasingly splintered Republican field to the same pattern which lead to President Donald Trump.  See it here.  If the bundle of Missouri Senate candidates attacks each other in hopes of emerging as the mainstream alternative to Greitens, they may find themselves in the same shoes as Rubio, Christie and the other 2016 also-rans.

Long “Leaning Heavily” Toward Running

Here’s the current mood on the other congressionals jumping in.

·         Congressman Billy Long tells reporter Mike Mahoney he’s “leaning heavily towards joining the MOSEN in the near future.”  See it here.  The folks I talk to are generally disbelieving that Long gets in, but if he does, that will open a floodgate to replace him.  There is no shortage of capable and credible Republicans in southwest Missouri.

·         More likely right now – according to the crowd – is Congressman Jason Smith.  He spoke to the mighty Jason Rosenbaum at Lincoln Days (listen here) and continues to sound like someone who is, in fact, leaning heavily.

·         And then there’s Congresswoman Ann Wagner.  She’s hard to handicap.  The reasons people think she’ll enter the race is because she’s off the leadership track in the House – and she has grandchildren.  It wouldn’t be the worst outcome for her to have more time to spend with family.  That’s a formula for an up-or-out decision.

Ratliff for McCloskey

The highly esteemed Jonathan Ratliff is consulting for Mark McCloskey.  Ratliff headed up the HRCC last cycle and is the father of seemingly a thousand Missouri campaign wins.

ROMO (Reminder of the Obvious): Anti-Greitens forces are cheering for McCloskey.  The current conventional wisdom is that McCloskey most directly draws from the Greitens base (gun-waving outsiders).  This may be true.  It’s honestly hard to tell at this point as I don’t have an apples-to-apples.  Consider…

March’s Remington/MOScout poll

Q4: Possible candidates in the 2022 Republican Primary Election for United States Senate are Eric Greitens, Eric Schmitt and Ann Wagner. If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?

Eric Greitens: 38%

Eric Schmitt: 26%

Ann Wagner: 18%

Undecided: 18%

Last week’s Remington/MOScout poll

Q2: Announced candidates in the 2022 Republican Primary Election for United States Senate are Eric Greitens, Vicky Hartzler, Mark McCloskey and Eric Schmitt. If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?

Eric Greitens: 34%

Eric Schmitt: 25%

Vicky Hartzler: 14%

Mark McCloskey: 7%

Undecided: 20%

37% MO GOPers Definitely Follow Trump’s Pick

Maybe the most important question from last week’s Remington/MOScout poll was question #4 which indicates that – given a fracture field of four or more credible candidates – whoever lands the Trump endorsement will pull down a plurality of the Missouri Republican primary voters.

Q4: Some candidates are pursuing the endorsement of President Donald Trump. If Trump were to endorse a candidate in the United States Senate race, how would that influence your vote? Would you definitely vote for that candidate, probably vote for that candidate, probably not vote for that candidate, or would it make no difference to how you would vote?

Definitely vote for candidate Trump endorsed: 37%

Probably vote for candidate Trump endorsed: 26%

Probably not vote for candidate Trump endorsed: 16%

No difference: 22%

The 7-1 Scenario

Jack Suntrup writes about the possibility that the Republican supermajorities in the legislature would draw a 7-1 congressional map.  Read it here. 

·         Missouri Republicans are weighing whether to push for the elimination of a safe Democratic congressional district in Kansas City later this year during the state’s once-every-decade redistricting process.

·         Such a change in the state’s congressional map, leaving U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, without a safe district, would seem to further erode Democratic power in Missouri, where Democrats currently control two seats and Republicans hold six.

·         But the GOP chairman of the Missouri House redistricting committee said an aggressive strategy by Republicans could backfire in the long run, with Democrats potentially winning three congressional seats by the end of the decade.

·         The chairman, Rep. Dan Shaul, R-Imperial, said in an interview Friday he hasn’t decided what kind of map to support.

On Twitter Cook Report’s Dave Wasserman sketches what a 7-1 map might look like.  See it here.

What It Means

A 7-1 map would scramble all the current guesswork on the 4-CD.  Some of the folks now considered 4-CD candidates would be instead in a newly constituted 5-CD.  And a whole set of new possible candidates would emerge in the new 4-CD.

FRA Talk

I’m told that the governor’s office has been working on FRA language.  The Senate Republican Caucus is scheduled to meet with the second floor on Tuesday. 

Reminder: Governor Mike Parson has stated he’ll restrict from the new budget on July 1 without an agreement.  That’s sixteen days away…

Ten Ideas

Wall Street Journal published ten public policy experiments occurring across the country in small and midsized cities.  See it here.  Here are a couple from the article…

·         Affordable housing in your backyard.  Cities across the U.S. struggle with a lack of affordable housing. Pasadena, Calif., is addressing the problem by enticing people to build homes in their backyards. The city’s so-called Second Unit ADU Program offers low-interest loans of up to $150,000 for homeowners to turn garages or vacant land on their property into rentals for tenants with Section 8 housing vouchers….

·         Cash for remote workers. Cities usually try to attract taxpayers to their areas by offering companies incentives to move. As more Americans work remotely, cities are starting to target workers directly. Last June, Savannah, Ga., said it would give tech workers up to $2,000 to cover moving expenses….

·         Reparations.  The Chicago suburb of Evanston became the first U.S. city to launch a reparations program when it voted to approve the first payments earlier this year, using taxes on the sale of marijuana. Black residents and their descendants are eligible to apply for $25,000 grants if they were victims of housing discrimination due to city policies between 1919 and 1969…

·         Smart sewers.  When it rains or when snow melts, sewers often flow over, dumping wastewater into rivers. South Bend, Ind., became one of the first cities to address the problem with so-called smart sewers. They include sensors and valves that detect when the system is in danger of overflowing and redirect wastewater so that less of it escapes the sewers…

eMailbag on Primary Math

This applies to the US Senate and 4th CD primaries:  with 4+ Trumpettes vying for that vote and likely more, the filed is open for a "traditional" Republican who can appeal to the 24%+ who don't identify it solely as Trump's party to finish first.  That candidate could also attract independents and Democratic crossovers in the primary.

More Burch Tributes

·         Jay Hahn’s comments are so true. I experienced the same with Jerry. He helped me bring in my first account after joining Gamble. The city of Nevada, an account Jerry could have easily taken as that was his home territory but he helped me instead.  Always a friendly face. Jorgen

·         David A. Woodruff on Facebook: Learned today Jerry Burch has passed. I’m forever indebted to Mr. Burch, who got me my first job.  When I walked into the Missouri State Capitol with a 3-week-old diploma and a smile looking for a job (and got one), Phil Tate got word of it, and told me to talk to Jerry first….

Lobbyists Registrations

Karen Pipes added Bank of America Corporation.  

Jeffrey Altmann deleted Botannis Labs MO Corp., Contract Pharmacal Corporation, Citizen Voters, and CoreMedica.

Stephen Eisele deleted PROMO.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to Rep. Dirk Deaton.