MOScout Daily Update: Hawley Hits on Truck Fears - Abortion Issue Back To Voters - Why No One Collects Signatures in CD 8 - Bahr Takes Heat and more…
Hawley Hits Kunce on Fossil Fuel Ban
The conventional wisdom among the political class is that Missouri’s statewide offices are presently beyond the reach of Democrats. Since Donald Trump’s emergence in 2016, the state has moved decidedly red.
By this calculus, the US Senate race between incumbent Josh Hawley and Democrat Lucas Kunce should be a foregone conclusion.
And yet, Team Kunce insists that they have a roadmap. They’ve raised oodles of money and already have ads on the airwaves.
Similarly, Hawley isn’t taking the race for granted either. His current ad is a twist on the “Dems want to take your guns away” theme. This says that Kunce will take your pick-up truck away. Watch it here.
65% of Missourians drive trucks but leftwing politician Lucas Kunce would take them off the road. Kunce is running for US Senate on a radical environmental platform to outlaw gas and diesel pickup trucks. It’s nuts but it’s Kunce. Say no to Lucas Kunce.
· One Dem consultant: Hawkey’s first ad is an attack ad which indicates to me that the Hawley camp is more worried than I would have expected.
IPs Certified
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft announced that the proposed constitutional amendments regarding sports betting and abortion rights collected enough signatures to be on the November ballot. So too did the statutory change to increase the state’s minimum wage and require employers to provide paid sick leave.
Failing to make the ballot was an effort to add a casino on the Osage River.
The ballot language of the various proposals before voters can be seen here.
What It Means
Democrats believe this will help their turnout. It revives an issue which they have traditionally played defense on in Missouri, but now seems to play in their favor. Polling in Missouri has shown that most Missourians are uncomfortable with the current total ban.
· Democratic standard-bearer Crystal Quade has made the issue a cornerstone of her campaign.
· It’s telling that the abortion issue was absent from the Republican statewide primary campaigns. No one ran on it. Early on, Mike Kehoe broke ground with Jay Ashcroft and Bill Eigel by embracing exceptions to the current ban. Initially, folks thought that stance would be a vulnerability for Kehoe. But the same position was also embraced by Donald Trump. And, the Ashcroft and Eigel campaigns apparently determined it wasn’t a potent line of attack.
· Dems will rebut Republicans’ attempts to say they favor exceptions now, pointing out that Republicans were wholly responsible for enacting the current ban.
Also
To qualify, constitutional amendments need signatures from 8% of voters in 6 of the state’s 8 congressional districts. For statutory changes, only 5% is required.
Because signatures are easier to collect in more densely populated areas, the larger (more sparsely populated) rural congressional districts are usually the ones which the collection campaigns avoid.
· Sports betting did not target CD 6 and CD8.
· Abortion rights did not target CD 6 and CD 8.
· Osage gambling did not target CD 6 and CD 8. They failed in CD 2.
· Minimum wage did not target CD 4 and CD 8.
St. Charles Conservatives Allege Elections Fraud
Post Dispatch reports that “St. Charles County residents and officials renewed calls this week to remove the county’s elections director over last week’s delayed election results following a ‘technical glitch.’” Former Rep. Kurt Bahr is the elections director.
· “This is ridiculous. We look like fools. St. Charles County looks like fools,” said Bob Eno, the chair of the St. Charles County Republican Party’s Central Committee. Eno, who said he was speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the committee, was one of several conservative county residents to address the county council.
· Many people who spoke at Monday’s meeting expressed doubts about the outcome of two races: County Councilman Dave Hammond’s 14-vote win over O’Fallon City Councilwoman Debbie Cook and Jen Bahr’s one-vote win over Katie Stickman for a position on the Republican Party’s Central Committee.
· “The coup de gras of all of this is that his wife runs for the committee and wins by one vote, one freaking vote,” Eno said. “Think about that — what are the odds? And now we have to seat her on the committee. That is total (expletive) guys.”
· Cook, the O’Fallon Councilwoman, told the Post-Dispatch that she too has doubts about the outcome… “I’ve run a lot of races. I’ve won some, and I’ve lost some. I know what it feels like to lose, but this doesn’t feel like that. This feels like I’ve been cheated, and you can feel the difference,” Cook said.
· County Councilman Joe Brazil doubled down on his long-standing criticism of Bahr, claiming that Bahr had tampered with the ballot tabulation machines in 2020 when they disabled the machines’ ethernet port and jeopardized the legitimacy of county, state and federal elections ever since. Those claims are unfounded, according to Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft…
JP and Beers Sutton Drive HRCC $$$
With the House Republican Campaign Committee retreat is this week, word is that fundraising is on track for Republicans to once again have an enormous financial edge on Dems. The whisper number for the amount raised for the event is nearing $1.5 million.
· Credit goes to incoming Speaker Jon Patterson and HRCC ED Hannah Beers Sutton.
Kids in the Crossfire
Kaiser Family Foundation News reports on impact that the Super Bowl parade shooting had on children.
Children are particularly vulnerable to the stresses of gun violence, and 10 of 24 people injured by bullets at the Feb. 14 parade were under 18 years old. They’ve endured fear, anger, sleep problems, and hypersensitivity to crowds and noises.
eMailbag on Grey Lounges
It’s disappointing but not surprising to me how the Governor can find the time and rationale to shut down hemp products despite their uncertain legality but can’t bring himself to shut down grey machines which are almost assuredly illegal. Both vices pose well understood and arguably equally significant, albeit different, societal harms so why the difference in tactic?
eMailbag on Conservative Justice
Interesting to give those two lawyers [Ketchmark and Hollard firms] a win by giving Kehoe $10k despite the fact they dumped at least a half million on Jay Ashcroft.
Lobbyists Registrations
Danny Pfeifer, Greg Porter, and Tashayla Person Donohoe added KNOWiNK; and deleted Northeast Missouri Health Council, Justice Action Network, Hims & Hers, and Clark Community Mental Health Center.
Alex Eaton deleted Clark Community Mental Health Center.
$5K+ Contributions
NEMO Leadership PAC (pro-O’Laughlin) - $52,000 from Missouri Pork PAC.
NEMO Leadership PAC - $10,000 from BNSF Railway Company (Worth, TX).
Missouri Alliance PAC (pro-Patterson) - $15,000 from Promontory 150 LLC.
Stop Gun Violence Now PAC - $25,000 from Cornerstone 1791.
CN-MO PAC - $10,000 from Maverik, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT).
UAW Region 4 Midwest States PAC (MO) - $6,000 from Midwest State Cap Exchange (Ottawa, IL).
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Rep. David Griffith, Ashley Bax, Nancy Cross, Tyler Travers, Doug Moore, Locke Thompson, and John Loudon.