These 9 Republican candidates are running for Missouri governor

Claudette Riley, Springfield News-Leader
·9 min read
The Missouri State Capitol building on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.
The Missouri State Capitol building on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.

Missouri's lieutenant governor, secretary of state and a state senator are among the nine Republican candidates squaring off in the Aug. 6 primary.

The winner will face Democratic and Libertarian challengers in November to determine who will succeed Gov. Mike Parson and become the 58th governor of Missouri.

Republican primary candidates include Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, state Sen. Bill Eigel plus Darren Grant, Jeremy Gundel, Darrell McClanahan III, Robert James Olson, Amber Thomsen and Chris Wright.

Three candidates hail from southwest Missouri: Olson is from Springfield, Thomsen is from Hollister and Wright lives in the Joplin area.

The News-Leader reached out to all candidates. The four with the most extensive fundraising and campaigning, who all agreed to be interviewed, were asked about their top priorities and what sets them apart from other candidates.

Jay Ashcroft

Ashcroft was elected the state's 40th Secretary of State in 2016 and re-elected in 2020. A major part of the role is to oversee federal and state elections and provide guidance, as needed, to local election authorities.

Jay Ashcroft
Jay Ashcroft

He earned a master's degree in engineering management, worked as a defense industry engineer and taught engineering at St. Louis Community College before going to law school and practicing law.

His top priority is giving parents more control over their children's education with state funding for education to "follow the child."

Ashcroft said he wants the state funds that would typically go to a public school to educate a child to be placed in a savings account, similar to the health savings account that many employers provide.

He said the funds could be used to pay tuition at a private school, hire a tutor, or purchase homeschool materials.

Ashcroft said the change will also give teachers more power to make changes.

"When parents control the funds, they're going to want to meet that teacher and when they like the teacher, their children are going to follow that teacher," he said.

"And that teacher can go to the administration and say 'You see these kids? They're with me. They are here because their parents want me teaching them. Either you support me, either you make sure that the money is actually getting to the classroom ? a large portion of it is not in most school districts ? or I'm going elsewhere to teach and I'm taking these kids with me.'"

Another top priority for Ashcroft is public safety. "We need several thousands more officers in Missouri and I made a pledge to get 1,000 new officers on the streets in the first year."

He added: "We need to take back over the St. Louis City Police Department because they are being underfunded. They are not given the resources they need to protect the people of the city of St. Louis and public safety is a core responsibility of government."

He is the son of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who served as Missouri governor from 1985-1993, and as a U.S. Senator.

Bill Eigel

Eigel, a U.S. Air Force military veteran, was elected to the Missouri Senate in 2016. He represent part of St. Charles County, where he has owned a business for more than a decade.

Bill Eigel
Bill Eigel

After military service, he purchased a small residential and commercial remodeling company and grew it to serve customers across the U.S.

Eigel referred to himself as the "anti-establishment candidate" as well as a disruptor.

"We have a status quo in Jefferson City that is actually supported way too much by both political parties," he said. "Because of this status quo, we're unable to move the big conservative Republican ideas that Missouri voters show up every two years and overwhelmingly demand from their state government."

Eigel said those demands include "getting rid of personal property tax, deporting the illegals in this state, stopping the sale of our farm lands to foreign countries."

If elected, Eigel said he will work to get rid of "nonsense" in public schools including diversity, equity and inclusion; the controversial Critical Race Theory and "transgender stuff."

"It's going to take someone who is willing to confront the status quo if we're going to start getting the Missouri that I know Missourians want that we've been too weak to deliver in Jefferson City," he said.

Eigel said one of his top priorities is to immediate declare that Missouri has been invaded by people from other countries who are living in the state illegally.

"That is going to empower me to implement my policy of detaining and deporting every single one of these illegal immigrants that are here. There are estimated to be more than 70,000 of them," he said.

One of his other priorities is to combat crime in urban areas by putting officers where they are most needed and by "tripling the highway patrol presence on the highways leading into and out of St. Louis."

Mike Kehoe

Kehoe was appointed by Parson to serve as the state's 48th Lieutenant Governor in June 2018. He was elected to a full term in 2020.

Mike Kehoe
Mike Kehoe

He was raised in North St. Louis City by a single mother and started working at age 15 to help pay the bills. Later, he owned an ambulance manufacturing company and later a car dealership.

Kehoe said his upbringing helped shape his life and approach to politics.

"The only way I've gotten through life and got through business...and been able to buy businesses, start businesses, raise a family, be a first-generation farmer is to understand how to fight and I know how to fight for Missouri's values," he said.

"I know what Missourians want. No. 1, they want government out of their lives and Missourians are pretty smart so we don't need to be telling them what to do. But when they need us to come up with a solution, Missourians need to know I am going to fight for them and we're going to fight for the right conservative ending."

Elected to the Missouri Senate in 2010, Kehoe served as the Minority Floor Leader. He previously served as chair of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission.

"The fact that I was born and raised by a single mother, the youngest of six kids with no father and worked my way through life to end up successfully building, with the help of a lot of people, several small business...gives me a perspective that the others in the race do not have," Kehoe said. "Forty years ago, I bought my first set of cattle, so I am a first-generation farmer. Missouri's No. 1 industry is agriculture."

Kehoe said reducing crime is his top priority and he will provide the resources needed to get it under control and to hire more law enforcement officers and give them the resources they need to effective patrol their communities. As part of that, he wants to enact laws that are stricter on fentanyl dealers and get a handle on immigration as soon as he's sworn in.

"When my hand comes off the Bible, we'll enact our Day 1 crime plan," he said. Going forward, he also plans to work on economic development, education reform and growing the agriculture community.

Chris Wright

Wright, a small business owner and former police officer from the Joplin area, serves in the Missouri Army National Guard. He has 24 years of military service including a 17-month deployment to Iraq in the early 2000s.

Chris Wright
Chris Wright

He currently owns a construction company and a real estate investment company,

"I bring the background of not being tied to the political apparatus and if you look at my Missouri Ethics Commission report, I'm self-funding most of this and so I don't owe a single person one favor," he said.

Wright said one of his top priorities is to reduce crime and has a plan to hire more law enforcement officers. "Right now we are critically low in law enforcement officers across the state, everywhere, every municipality."

His plan is to activate the Missouri National Guard and to place up to 800 members trained in the infantry and military police in different cities.

"They're not going to go around kicking in doors and arresting people but they are going to (provide) that presence of authority because crime likes to hit the soft spots, the soft targets," he said.

With that help in place, Wright said he will focus on finding and training enough future law enforcement officers to fill the vacancies, which he admitted will take time.

"First, you got to entice the people to want to even be in law enforcement, then you've got to do background checks and then you've got to send them through an academic for training," he said. "Then you've got to get them hired."

Another top priority is to get a handle on escalating utility rates. He acknowledged his plan will not impact Springfield because City Utilities is owned by the community and is governed by a board, most of whom are customers.

In many other parts of the state, the Missouri Public Service Commission regulates investor-owned electric, natural gas, steam, water and sewer utilities. The members of the commission are appointed by the governor.

Wright said he will not appoint former lawmakers and lobbyists to the commission. "I will put regular, everyday hard-working Missourians on this board who know what it's like to feel the pinch of these utility companies."

Who is running?

There are 15 people running for Missouri governor in the Aug. 6 primary.

Democratic primary candidates include Sheryl Gladney, St. Charles; Mike Hamra, Springfield; Hollis Laster, Normandy; Eric Morrison, Lee's Summit; and Crystal Quade, Springfield.

Republican primary candidates include Jay Ashcroft, Bolivar; Bill Eigel, Weldon Spring; Darren Grant, Maryland Heights; Jeremy Gundel, Washburn; Mike Kehoe, St. Louis; Darrell Leon McClanahan III, Milo; Robert James Olson, Springfield; Amber Thomsen, Hollister; and Chris Wright, Joplin.

Libertarian primary candidate is Bill Slantz, St. Charles.

Want to know more?

A look at the campaign websites or other online resource, if available, for the candidates running for Missouri governor:

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri governor Republican candidates: 9 face off in August primary

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