MOScout Daily Update: Some Early 3Q PAC Reports - Bailey-Scharf Models - Christ v Virvus - Pro-Harder PAC and more...

The campaign finance July quarter deadline is tonight.  I’ll have a rundown for you tomorrow, but a couple of significant PACs filed early over the weekend…

PACs Reporting

·       SOS Jay Ashcroft’s Committee for Liberty raised $115,900 last quarter.  This continues the trend of Ashcroft being outraised by Mike Kehoe.  The pro-Ashcroft PAC finished with $1.4M cash on-hand, about half of the pro-Kehoe PAC’s $2.9M.  It seems clear that Kehoe will have more resources than Ashcroft, but will it be enough to overcome the lead that Ashcroft starts with?  And what role with the Bill Eigel campaign play?

·       AG Andrew Bailey’s Liberty and Justice Committee raised $88,550 and has $778,108 cash on-hand.  See below for some more thoughts on the AG’s race.

·       Sen. Travis Fitzwater’s Kingdom Leadership PAC showed some heavy expenditures for someone who’s not on-cycle.  A peak inside the report showed the PAC paid out “win bonuses” to Palm Strategies for his 2022 victories: $30K for the primary win and $20K for the general election win.

·       Former speaker Tim Jones seeded the Leadership for America PAC many years ago after he withdrew from the LG’s race.  Now it looks like those funds are undergoing another transformation.  The PAC sent $300K to a new non-profit established a few months ago: The Leadership for America Institute.  See the paperwork here.

Two Ways of Viewing the AG Race

Last weekend’s informal survey of Missouri lobbyists (The Hallway Index) found 70% predicting that Andrew Bailey would prevail in his attorney general primary battle with Will Scharf.

But one savvy observer thinks that folks are using the wrong mental model when they analyze the race.  He thinks that folks are using last year’s US Senate race where then-AG Eric Schmitt successfully used that position to show the Republican base where he stood on issues through action. 

·       Everyone else was speechifying; Schmitt was doing. 

·       Others huffed and puffed against mask mandates; Schmitt sued the schools.

·       Others talked about being pro-Trump; Schmitt put his name on a lawsuit to overturn Pennsylvania’s vote. 

And all the while he made headlines and earned free media while doing it.  Now they see Bailey aggressively using his position as well, and generating free media.  They’re assuming that playbook will have the same result.

But, this person argues, the actual analogous situation is actually the 2016 attorney general race between Josh Hawley and then-Sen. Kurt Schaefer.  And the deciding factor in that race was the oodles of money that powered Hawley’s campaign. 

He thinks that will be the distinguishing dynamic at play in this race.  Massive third-party money will swamp the Bailey campaign and lift Scharf to a comfortable victory.

We’ll see….

Christ vs Virvus?

Rep. Brad Christ tried to tangle with Virvus Jones, pops to St. Louis City Tishaura Jones, on Twitter but found himself “blocked.”

At issue was a tweet by the elder Jones telling folks who want to be safe to stay on their farms rather come to the city.

·       Not a great look for St. Louis.  One MOScouter: “Imagine being the head of the Convention and Visitors Bureau and waking up to that… [or] someone who’s been mugged or carjacked or robbed in the last couple of years.”

DeGroot Consulting?

A new business registered last week, Conservative Consulting Group LLC, appears to be linked to former Rep. Bruce DeGroot.  See the filing here.

DeGroot is now chief of staff for Sen. Curtis Trent.  It’s a Missouri political tradition for staffers to have side businesses to handle the political work they do.

Pro-Harder PAC

St Louis Conservative Leadership PAC was formed.  It’s allied with Mark Harder.  He’s the St. Louis County Councilman who’s running in the hot primary to replace Sen. Andrew Koenig in Senate 15.   

·       See the paperwork here.

US Senate Race Talk

Readers sent me various thoughts about the US Senate race…

·       On Wesley Bell’s “regional campaign”:  [He’s] is setting himself up nicely to gain name ID and run for County Executive…

·       On Lucas Kunce poll numbers: Pretty rough number for Kunce. He’s spent almost $7M running for senate - and has been running for years - and still doesn’t have a third of Democratic electorate on his side.

·       On Kunce’s COH: Lucas Kunce has about $1.2M COH.  That’s more COH at this point in the cycle than any previous Missouri candidate challenging a U.S. Senate incumbent in the last two decades.

Lobbyists Registrations

James Harris deleted Kings Garden Midwest LLC, Varsity Tutors, and The Giddens Group.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Rep. Adam Schwadron, Guy Black, David Klarich, Jeffrey Earl, Jeff Rainford, and Richard Callow.