MOScout Daily Update: Not What Danforth Had In Mind? - McCreery Adds $100K - The Hit on Kunce - House To Hear Sports Betting and more...

Probably Not What Danforth Had In Mind

Thomas Schneider says he’s going to answer Jack Danforth’s call for an “Independent Republican” to run for US Senate. 

Tom who? He’s a former mayor of Florissant. 

His candidacy won’t bring a victory to Team Danforth, and shouldn’t buoy Democrats that the seat might be in play by peeling off Republicans.

·         It’s possible a viable candidate emerges, but Schneider is not it.

McCreery Adds $100K

Rep. Tracy McCreery added $100,000 to her state senate campaign committee.  McCreery is running in Senate 24 to replace Sen. Jill Schupp.  McCreery had $400,000 cash in the bank on her finance filing last month.  So this brings her up to a half-million warchest.

McCreery has also gathered the endorsement of every important and semi-important Democrat in her area.

·         The senate lines haven’t been drawn yet, but McCreery looks like a lock in Senate 24.

The Hit on Kunce

A text-based poll on the US Senate race – which appeared from the questions to be conducted for the Spencer Toder campaign – offers a glimpse of a line of attack which Democrats may use against Lucas Kunce.  Kunce leads the Dems in fundraising and thus seen as the frontrunner and the candidate most likely to suffer some slings.  The attack centers on Kunce’s previous run for state representative.

House Hears Sports Betting Today

The House Special Committee on Public Policy will hear bills from Reps. Phil Cristofanelli and Dan Houx on legalizing sports betting in Missouri.

It’s said that they have largely managed a compromise between the major stakeholders in the industry.  But Sen. Denny Hoskins – who has carried the issue in the Senate for the past several years – has warned he may want some changes.

·         This topic appears to be another in a pipeline of issues that the House will send the Senate and cross their fingers that the gridlock on that side of the building eases between now and May.

Conservative Caucus 2023

I’m not giving up on this session just yet, but it never hurts to look around the corner.  Here’s where the Conservative Caucus is heading in January 2023.

·         Sen. Bob Onder is termed, and Sen. Eric Burlison is vacating his seat to run for Congress. This will diminish the Conservative Caucus next session by two, bringing their numbers down to five.

·         But it’s possible that they’ll add a member or two with the incoming freshmen class. Rep. Nick Schroer (in Senate 2) and Ben Brown (in Senate 26) are naturals to caucus with the Conservative Caucus.  But both have vigorous primaries and there’s no guarantee either will win.

·         One source says that the “Conservative Caucus is also courting Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (in Senate 22) and Rep. Curtis Trent (in Senate 20).”  It’s unclear how receptive these two have been to these overtures.

Bottom-line: Conservative Caucus next January will likely be between 5-8 members.

Onder to File for St. Chuck Exec

Sen. Bob Onder announced yesterday that he’d file to run for St. Charles County Executive this morning.  This was expected.  Onder amended his campaign committee months ago.  Onder is taking on incumbent Steve Ehlmann. 

·         From yesterday’s announcement, it appears Onder’s central campaign message will revolve around the county’s COVID response… “As your State Senator, I have fought hard against COVID tyranny. And I’m sorry to say that here in St. Charles County we have our own COVID tyrant as current County Executive, Steve Ehlmann, who has given us restaurant shutdowns, mask mandates, and deprived our children of over 350,000 days of school…”

·         Ehlmann is expected to run on his record: no scandals and continued growth of the county.

What Everyone Already Knew: No Hack Attack

Post-Dispatch reports on the Missouri Highway Patrol’s investigation into the “hacking” of the DESE website.  Don’t read it unless you want to be infuriated at the utter waste of taxpayer dollars directed by Governor Mike Parson. 

·         When someone searched for a teacher, their data was sent from the server to the browser and was "literally sitting right there."… He then made the following analogy, if a person walks into a room and shouts their social security number in Chinese, and if anyone in the room understands what they said, they are charging that person with unauthorized access.

·         I asked him to rate the computer level of a person to access this data and he advised to anyone who has done web application development, it would be like a basic "101."… He stated for someone in the security field, this would be one of the worst mistakes they could make.

Parson Dips in Latest MOScout Poll

While the headline news from last weekend’s MOScout/Remington poll was that the US Senate race saw no immediate impact from Senator Josh Hawley’s endorsement of Vicky Hartlzer, there was a little nugget deeper.

Governor Mike Parson’s favorability numbers have slipped a tad.  His favorability – and this is among Republicans – was 55%.  That’s down from 61% when the same question was asked in September 2021.

$5K+ Contributions

McCreery for Missouri - $100,000 from Tracy McCreery.

Lobbyists Registrations

Tom Dempsey and Dave Berry added City of Lake St. Louis.

Cassandra Allana Grewing added City of Hazelwood.

Sarah Schlemeier deleted Cardinal Health.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to Rep. Josh Hulbert.