“I’ve never run for public office before, but my desire to see Johnson County thrive has motivated me to take this new step into public life,” stated Phelps. “I’m excited to talk with voters and work with them to find the best solutions to maintaining our county’s way of life. I’m proud to call Johnson County my home and raise my children here.”

Phelps is running on a platform of fiscal responsibility and conservative values. He has mentioned support for family farms and businesses as a cornerstone of his campaign, alongside improving infrastructure while keeping taxes low. He plans to remove burdensome red tape on the state level and ensure all Johnson County citizens are protected from government overreach.

“The last thing people want to hear these days is ‘government knows best.’ No, We the People know what’s best for our own businesses and farms. As state representative, my office would be a shield from government overreach so that our local economy can continue to grow without burdensome regulations. I will ensure we have a responsible state budget and that we are prioritizing our local infrastructure needs. I will reduce wasteful spending and work to keep Johnson County prosperous.”

Phelps lives in Warrensburg and owns a landscaping business; he also owns several local residential and commercial properties. Currently, he serves as the chairman of the county’s Republican Party chapter. He and his wife, Angela, have two daughters and enjoy spending their time staying involved in their community.

Brandon Phelps has retained Axiom Strategies to serve as consultants on his campaign.

The post Press Release: Local businessman Brandon Phelps announces campaign for Missouri House appeared first on The Missouri Times.

The Senate has decided who will become their floor leaders for both caucuses as well as who will take up the mantle for President Pro Tem as current President Pro Tem Sen. Dave Schatz is term limited.

The Democratic Caucus has decided that the Minority Floor Leader will once again be Sen. John J. Rizzo. Rizzo has dutifully served as Minority Floor Leader since 2020.

Democratic voters successfully defended Sen. Jill Schupp’s seat early last week, electing Rep. Tracy McCreery to the Senate. But Rizzo and the Senate Democrats will still have a tough road ahead as Republicans hold their supermajority in the upper chamber.

The Republican Caucus has decided that the majority floor leader will be Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin. Although O’Laughlin has not been in a Senate leadership position in the past, she has been a part of many committees. This includes the Senate Education Committee, in which she was chairwoman.

The Senate has also decided that Rowden will be the next President Pro Tem. Rowden previously served as Majority Floor Leader, where he battled with the now defunct Senate Conservative Caucus over a variety of issues last session.

The Conservative Caucus disbanded during this past summer but that does not mean Rowden will not have more battles to fight in his newly elevated position.

The House has also decided their leadership last week. The Republicans have decided their Majority Floor Leader will be Rep. Jon Patterson with Rep. Mike Henderson as Speaker Pro Tem. Rep. Dean Plocher remains as Speaker-Designee of the House.

The House Democrats decided Rep. Crystal Quade will return as Minority Floor Leader after her reelection victory. While House Democrats are still in the minority, they did pick up a few contested seats this week.

Both chambers have lost and gained key members these past few months, thanks to a few competitive primary and general elections this cycle. Now only time will tell how this session will go as it inches closer.

Kelton Turner

Kelton is a 2023 graduate of the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies. He is a native of mid-Missouri and likes to write politics at both the state and federal levels. Kelton joined the Missouri Times in April 2022

www.themissouritimes.com

The post Here’s who will be in Senate, House leadership next year. appeared first on The Missouri Times.

Rep. Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit was elected House Floor Leader in a closely fought contest with Rep. Michael Haffner of Cass Coutny.

The race was very close and pitted Patterson with a coalition of younger legislators against a coalition of more senior members. Patterson did particularly well with incoming house freshmen, and is now the leader in the clubhouse to serve as Speaker after Rep. Dean Plocher is term limited.

The rest of next year’s house leadership team is as follows:

Speaker: Dean Plocher

Pro Tem: Mike Henderson

Floor Leader: Jon Patterson

Assistant Floor Leader: Jamie Burger 

Caucus Chair: Chris Dinkins

Whip: Hardy Billington

Election take aways

For the first time in over ten years house democrats had a legitimately good night picking up three seats. Lets look a few reasons that might have led to the pickups:

#1 House Minority Leader Crystal Quade and her team have put their heads down and did the work to build a functioning campaign arm out of literally nothing. You have to also credit labor for making significant financial contributions to that effort. In the end you credit the winners for doing the work and finally after a couple cycles of futility she is seeing some of the fruits of her labor.

#2  The republican caucus had expanded into districts that they had no right to be competitive in much less hold. When you elect 114 members you have to defend 114 districts, which must plainly easier than defending forty some districts. When finally for the first time since 2012 Missouri followed the national trend and made democrats competitive it took some of those seats that were honestly over reaches in the first place.

#3 Abortion. There are voters who had previously voted for republicans who flipped to the democrats over abortion. Now was it a tsunami, no. However, in some close races you have to point to the fact that those voters had been casting ballots for republicans and with a ever worsening economy and the same crime concerns there was really only one variable that could have legitimately moved some of those voters and that was abortion.

#4 The map. This map was designed by republicans to have a few more competitive seats in order to ensure a floor of around 105 republican seats. Where democrats chose to push the envelope to pick up more seats and put more of their members at risk. In a democratic year, the map did was it was logically going to do.

#5 It’s not lost on the returning members that the sitting Speaker Rob Vescovo kept over $600,000 without giving a dime to anyone in the caucus whose support is the only reason he was given in the money in the first place. How many of those races could have been saved with just a nominal amount of help from the man at the top of the food chain? However, three Reps. texted me since the results came in that they think he probably uses the money for groceries anyway so there was more pity than anger.

*While it was a tough night for republicans it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that they returned a super majority plus three extra seats, so don’t cry for the republicans. However, what we may have seen is the end of the democratic free fall in the state and that should help whoever takes the reins of the campaign arm from Quade in ’24 with recruiting and fundraising.

Lastly it should be noted that doors matter. Not hiring staff to do lit drops, but the candidate actually knocking on someone’s door and talking to them. Reps. Betsy Fogle and Ashley Aune are primary examples of that.

McCreery roars to a 9 point win

Rep. Tracy McCreery now Senator-elect Tracy McCreery absorbed an onslaught of a million dollars of negative ads to win a comfortable victory. Dr. George Hruza ran a spirited campaign and frankly made the race more competitive than it might otherwise have been, but the fact is she is very very good candidate and that very good candidate won a district that a democrat should have won. She just won it handily.

The biggest take away other than the quality of the candidate is that the St. Louis County Police Officers Association endorsed her and joined the Firefighters in being in ads and walking streets. In the suburbs nothing is more toxic than the defund the police issue, and this race proved that it’s pretty hard to paint someone as a Black Lives Matter activist when she is endorsed by the police.

Id figure any democrat who is looking to run in a competitive district is calling Matt Crecelius and Joe Patterson this week.

AG pick coming 

It appears that Governor Parson is looking to name his pick for Attorney General tomorrow morning before he heads out on his trade mission to Israel. He leaves around noon, so be on the lookout early.

I suspect, the same as if you read this column three months ago or listened to any of my radio appearances,  that it will be his General Counsel Andrew Bailey, we will see soon.

Scott Faughn

Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.

The post This Week in Missouri Politics column: Patterson Floor Leader/Election take aways appeared first on The Missouri Times.

The district in St. Louis county encompasses a wide range of surrounding municipalities, including swaths of Maryland Heights and Creve Coeur.

The seat was formerly held by Sen. Jill Schupp, a Democrat who has served the area since 2014. She reached her term limit this year.

The campaign for District 24 was a tight one, with both sides running very aggressive campaigns in the area.

Now, the district has elected another democrat for the next four years, State Rep. Tracy McCreery. McCreery represented part of St. Louis County in House District 88. Now she will serve District 24 as their new Senator.

McCreery went unopposed in her primary and defeated Republican candidate Dr. George Hruza.

This Democrat victory will not shake up much in the upper chamber, as Republicans will still likely hold their longstanding super majority in the Senate.

Kelton Turner

Kelton is a 2023 graduate of the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies. He is a native of mid-Missouri and likes to write politics at both the state and federal levels. Kelton joined the Missouri Times in April 2022

www.themissouritimes.com

The post Rep. Tracy McCreery has won Senate District 24 appeared first on The Missouri Times.

Everything once again fell into place for the Attorney General. Schmitt has had a consistent message that he was “not from billions, he was from Bridgeton”, which clearly resonated with Missourians.  

He was the front-runner after securing the Republican nomination back in the August primary election, which was arguably the tougher of the two elections. 

His Democratic opponent Trudy Busch-Valentine also ran a good campaign and put up a fight for the Democratic party including contributing millions of her own money to the race. 

Polls in the last weeks leading up to election night reliably gave Schmitt a significantly large lead over Busch-Valentine, as if there was a reason to think otherwise. 

Schmitt’s persistent, and sometimes controversial lawsuits against fellow Missourians rallied his base and grew support for his campaign, though some did not agree with this tactic. 

The Attorney General will go on to replace the retiring Senator Roy Blunt and join Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who defeated Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in 2019, who had served in the Senate for over a decade.

Brady Hays

Brady Hays is a 2023 graduate of the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in History. He is currently attending the University of Missouri School of Law and is on pace to graduate with his JD in 2026. He has been working for the Missouri Times since early March 0f 2022.

themissouritimes.com%20

The post Schmitt wins Senate race in landslide appeared first on The Missouri Times.

Scott Faughn

Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.

The post The Missouri Times column appeared first on The Missouri Times.

However, The Missouri Times would like to make a prediction, Eric Schmitt will be a fantastic United States Senator. Give us a moment to explain how we came to this conclusion. 

First of all, let’s get a couple of groups out of the way that will disagree.

If you’re a left-winger who hangs on every vote, you are not going to like Eric Schmitt. It may come as a shock to you, but when he campaigns as pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling, and pro-tax cut: he is. So if you’re going to hold it against him when he votes like he has promised the state he will vote, then no you won’t like him.

Secondly, if you’re the angry right winger. Since this is a six-year term over the course of those six years he undoubtedly will do something that will return you to your roots of being loud and angry.

This Eric Schmitt that today you believe is this beautiful ideologically pure unicorn, a perfectly angry loudmouth just like yourself, will ultimately as the bloom fades on the rose to you become more of just a chubby unicorn, better known as a RINO. Just like everyone else does. 

With that said, for the truck driver from Chillicothe, or that gun store owner from West Plains or that nurse from Chaffee who gets up and works hard every day and primarily uses Facebook for pictures of their family, Eric Schmitt will be a fantastic United States Senator. 

Being a good senator is in large part about finding ways to earn the respect of your colleagues. Colleagues from both parties. 

In the state senate, Schmitt earned a reputation for being able to work with people from both parties, from all parts of the state. He also had a way of earning their respect. We think you can expect the same from him in the US Senate. 

He has enormous shoes to fill and he knows it. He is taking the seat held by Missouri icon Senator Roy Blunt, who took the seat from maybe the greatest US Senator Missouri has ever sent to Washington, Kit Bond. 

Those men were as revered and respected in Washington D.C. as they are in Washington County Missouri. Eric Schmitt is a student of history, he knows the responsibility he is inheriting is legendary, and the void they leave is immense. Knowing the responsibility you’re assuming is a big part of tackling it.  

Part of earning that respect is about how you handle the legislation you file. Now in the real world, there are two types of bills. Those filed to attract attention, and those filed with the intention of contributing to the public policy process.

In the state senate then State Senator Schmitt was very good at strategically filing a few bills to garner attention. However, he maintained the respect of his colleagues because the legislation he filed with the intention of becoming law he handled very professionally. There is no reason to believe that he won’t have the same success in the US Senate.

Eric Schmitt is someone who has a fundamental understanding of government. He started his career in local government at the Glendale City Council. Just as Senator Blunt started his career at the Greene County Courthouse. He then went into state government just as Senator Blunt did. 

Eric Schmitt has voted on a city council to spend the funds from a block grant. He has appropriated federal dollars to state programs. He knows what good those federal dollars actually accomplish on the other end. He has the perspective of what happens with those dollars from appropriation to ribbon cutting. 

In the state senate, he went to bat for his suburban schools to keep more of their money in the hold-harmless formula. This was not a politically popular move statewide, but he dug in for the benefit of the people of his district, and he prevailed for his district. 

Some have reasonable concerns about his handling of the Attorney General’s Office. Well, to be fair he inherited a tough situation and for the first half of his time in the office made it into an outstandingly well-regarded organization. 

There is no real defense to the claim that once he announced his senate campaign the office struggled. To be fair, there was some downright cartoonish behavior. However, the same fairness demands that it was his overwhelmingly popular work to force the lifting of the mask orders on Missouri children that vaulted him to office. 

The bottom line is that while some of the lawsuits were at best, stunts, they went over very well with the people of Missouri who were paying for them. Further, if he had not engaged in some of those fights for which he was lampooned for this state might very well have been represented by Senator Eric Greitens. 

After the primary should the shenanigans have stopped, well yes. However, if you’re looking for someone with a perfect record Jesus isn’t on the ballot for US Senate. 

In the end, The Missouri Times has covered Eric Schmitt more than anyone in the state, and in our view, as our United States Senator, you will find Eric Schmitt on Twitter and Fox News trumpeting the talking points of the day. 

You will also find that as your United States Senator he will earn the respect of his colleagues, fight like hell to see Missourians’ tax dollars returned to them, be the person this state turns to when they need those federal dollars spent on vital infrastructure for this state, and someone who will become a force on the national scene. 

His opponent, Trudy Busch Valentine is candidly a tremendous person. She is empathic, sincere, and we believe would absolutely throw herself into the role with everything she has. 

Unfortunately for her, things haven’t turned out as we’re sure President Biden had hoped. Unless the republicans had managed to nominate a completely unelectable candidate like Eric Greitens no one, including her, could have made this race competitive. 

However, when she got into the race Eric Greitens was leading in the polls, eager to make Missouri a national embarrassment again. We believe she got into this race in part to make sure that was a three-month, not six-year embarrassment. 

She has also done her part to hold up the top of the ticket and give democrats down the ballot a chance to hold on against an impending red wave. 

We will be the ones who remind Missourians of her positive contribution to this race and Missouri politics. 

Ultimately, Eric Schmitt did Missouri well by doing what it took to win that immensely challenging senate primary and starting tomorrow night we believe he will do what it takes to be a fantastic United States Senator from the Great State of Missouri. 

The post Editorial: Eric Schmitt will be a fantastic United States Senator appeared first on The Missouri Times.

Up next we took a stroll through the St. Louis area. 

The St. Louis day started the night before visiting with my ol’ pal Ray Hartmann on his radio show on the BIG 550 KTRS. He is quite the critic of Eric Schmitt’s, and I think maybe fell a little hard for Lucas Kunce. Ray is a hell of a guy, but Schmitt is great candidate, and just to put it Butler County gravel road plain as long as your having to swipe your card twice to fill up your truck no democrat was beating Eric Schmitt this year. 

Either way Ray is gonna owe me a beer in two years when he has to admit that Eric is showing him that he is doing a good job bringing back home our federal tax dollars to the Show Me State. 

The morning came quick, and I was up and out even before Coffee Zone was open. 

You notice a few things when you’re the only one awake, and I noticed that MODOT had put up

the signs for the Senator Roy Blunt Bridge over the Missouri. There probably hasn’t ever been a bridge, or any public building for that matter, more deservingly named that that one. Driving over it makes you think about the legendary and hopefully humbling legacy Eric is inheriting from not just Senator Blunt, but Senator Bond as well. 

When I got to the big city I got to sit in studio and visit with Kell Brazil and my buddy Rep. Richard West on Real Talk radio. 

They are both pretty fired up against Amendment 3. I have to admit the German in me with this very flexible elbow nearly perfectly suited for 12 ounce curls makes me pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, but Im gonna vote for it. 

I figure it ain’t none of my business what folks smoke, and I honestly don’t see any reason the legislature would make it legal any time soon. 

Richard and Kell were pretty set on that the amendment was too long, and pot shouldn’t be in the constitution. Well I tend to agree, but the state’s constitutional amendment process is way way too easy. 

These things get on the ballot without one signature gathered in southeast or north Missouri, but yet folks in Worth and Wayne Counties still have to live under the laws in a process they are intentionally shut out of. But let’s be honest there ain’t one person in that capitol except Governor Parson or Dean Plocher that cares about folks in Worth or Wayne Counties. 

Hell the super majority of republicans could barely pass an ag bill, but you just watch those same weak pliable rural republicans Wednesday will vote to put people in leadership that didn’t vote for the ag bill. Then they’ll blather on Facebook about the rural values they didn’t give a damn about having the balls to stand up for two hours earlier. It’s a vicious cycle when you’re as easy as a prom date like we’ve become in rural Missouri. 

I tend to think that the current system lets folks who wanna smoke pot, roll their dubies but kinda keep if out of sight of my mama. I think it’s done well enough to let it expand a little. However, if the folks who didn’t get their licenses in the first round get their way and it goes down it won’t change the number of fatties this daddy lights up in any way. 

You know maybe the folks fired up about this pot deal should put some of that effort into changing the amendment process. 

Until then I don’t hate the players, I hate the game. 

From there I got to sit down with Senator Paul Wieland for our Show Me Missouah interview series with legislators retiring this year. 

He has a had a great political career from serving in the house minority in the 90’s to serving in the house after the watershed 2010 election. He also served in the senate with some of the giants like Senators Richard, Kehoe, and Wasson as well as serving in the last four years of infighting. His career has also spanned seeing JeffCo go from a battleground to a solid red county. I think you’ll like it. 

The interview will be on the your podcast apps Wednesday.

From there we went to St. Charles County. Republican candidate Wendy Hausman invited us to tag along to her Pachyderm Club meeting in Lake St. Louis. 

Rep. Travis Fitzwater discussed why he ran for the senate, then he took questions about a range of issues. Actually that ain’t accurate he took a slew of questions, but they were all about schools in some form or another. 

After that I got to visit with Trudy Busch Valentine outside the early polling place at the Mermac campus of St. Louis Community College. 

Mrs. Busch is one of the nicest people to run for statewide office that I have ever met.  She remarked on how kind the people of Missouri have been to her before discussing her concern for women who are seeking treatments for ectopic pregnancies. 

She concluded with “However this turns out I wouldn’t have missed doing this for the world.”

I stuck my head into he door of the building where people were voting. There must have been a hundred people in line. 

From the traffic to the masks, to the lockdowns, to the lines for everything like voting you just feel so sorry for folks who have to live in those cities. It’s a hard ol’ life for em. 

After that I caught up with one of my favorite people in all of Missouri politics Rep. Jim Murphy. He was helping knock doors for Kenneth Abram who is running for the district just north of his. 

While there we had ANOTHER Doc Patterson sighting who had also come to knock doors for Mr. Abram. 

I stuck around the Social Club Grill there in South County after they left and visited with a few folks for a spell. You wouldn’t be surprised to see how much normal folks distain talking about politics. Don’t get me wrong there are some just dying to tell you all of their thoughts, but if I wanted to hear ramblings of the loud and angry I have Facebook for that. 

By the same token you might be surprised how happy those same quite normal folks are to give you a couple candid thoughts after you buy them a beer. 

Here in this very northern part of South County they are still democrats. At least they are trying pretty hard to still be democrats. The pretty consistent sentiment I got was that for the last several years they were voting for the folks they hated the most. They had came close to deciding that was the democrats, then the republicans pulled their right to work vote a few years ago. Then came the anti-police rhetoric, then came CRT, then came Cori Bush. There is only so much they are prepared to choke down to remain democrats, and that was all before inflation. 

One retired Teamster who was a Busch heavy drinker, bout like Mahoney, summed it up to me while I was drinking a Busch Light, bout like a life long republican with a weak handshake in South County would have been, “I had finally decided the democrats had pissed me off enough that I was gonna be a republican, then the repubclians tried to screw me with Right to Work. Well I guess we stuck it up their ass hard enough on that vote that I guess I’m about over it. I’ve just finally had to accept that democrats really don’t like old white guys like me. So Im gonna vote for the folks that do like me… for now. Either way I’m sure the republicans will find a way to piss me off again before long.” 

He also said some stuff about trans athletes I left out, but I assume you can pretty well guess what he said on that topic with out me spelling it out for you. 

It really is a battle out there of who do you hate the most. With a democrat who is struggling in the White House that all makes for a good tailwind in places like South County. 

I then caught up with the two Representatives and the one aspiring one, out knocking doors. As usual Jim put on a clinic on how well he knows his folks. He came to a door and pushed the button on the Ring Video Doorbell. When the little light came on he launched into his full pitch for Mr. Abram. He couldn’t have had any more Irish charm if it had been St. Paddy’s Day. 

Jim told me he has people still come up to him in the grocery store and play the video he made on their doorstep. It’s a great idea. The guy is just a natural among his folks. 

You have to figure that Rep. Walsh-Moore is the favorite here as the district goes all the way up to the city, but Mr. Abram is a very good recruit and in this environment it will be closer than it should, he could even win. Democrats in places like South County have to hope that republicans are pretty quick about finding a way to piss these folks off again or republicans are going to be knocking on the door of South City. 

In a tale of two counties I left South County for Kirkwood where Rep. Tracy McCreery is in a tighter than expected senate race against local doctor George Hruza. 

She told me she has knocked the entire district, and was going back to some neighborhoods to make sure they contacted everyone they could before election day. 

Hruza has ran a good campaign, a very good campaign, and has put in a good chunk of money. His attacks have been solid and a lot of them. Tracy is simply a very good candidate in a good district for democrats. In all honesty the republicans shouldn’t be competitive here, but again you have to swipe your card twice to fill up your truck and folks ain’t interested in macroeconomic lectures on why it ain’t Biden’s fault. 

You know actually I didn’t see many trucks in Kirkwood, but maybe you have to swipe your card twice to buy one of those Starbucks coffees. I honestly wouldn’t know. 

I stopped into Joey B’s there in Kirkwood. More than a couple folks there were willing to chat, and didn’t even need me to buy one of whatever fruity looking thing they were drinking in order to get them to. 

In Kirkwood those folks weren’t begrudgingly voting for anyone they were pretty happily gonna vote for democrats, like all of them. Even the guys were fired up about abortion. Im not even sure Rick Stream or Mike Gibbons could have won an election in this place. 

They were very engaged about voting and knew the candidates. In fact of the seven people I was chatting with five had already voted. 

There is some democratic enthusiasm Ive seen it, but I tend to reckon there are quite a few more folks in Missouri drinking Busch heavy in places like the Social Bar and Grill than there are drinking fruity Martinis at Joey B’s in Kirkwood. 

I guess we will find out Tuesday evening. 

Scott Faughn

Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.

The post F-150 Campaign Tour: St. Louis appeared first on The Missouri Times.

Today he was in the Northland of Kansas City.

I left Coffee Zone and headed to the Northland of Kansas City. In this cycle, Kansas City is going to be one of the hottest battlegrounds, and right at the top of the competitive list of seats is HD14 where one of the democratic party’s young rising stars Rep. Ashley Aune is seeking re-election in a new district that is more republican than her last one.

I followed her around while she knocked on a few doors in the Monticello subdivision. Kudos to her because this neighborhood looked chock full of republicans. Right as you pull in the subdivision you see one of Senator Luetkemeyer’s re-election signs.

It was early in the day so there wasn’t a lot of folks answering, but the ones who did were telling. It’s not hard to see that this neighborhood is republican. However, she has talent and I watched her take an older grey-headed white guy with an American flag patch on his sweater (aka a republican) talking about CRT who I have to figure had no intention of voting for any democrats and move him to where if I had to guess he is gonna vote for one, her.

I asked her how she goes about separating herself from the national democratic brand- which isn’t doing well in the Northland- and she said: relationships.

I stopped in The Alley for a Bud Light and I’ll be honest with you- folks were real eager to talk politics. They seem to all have previously been democrats or at least ticket splitters who are pretty ticked about gas prices and damn near everything else. However, a little over half of them had heard of Rep. Aune, and she fared well. It will be interesting to see if she can outrun the brand in a changing Northland.

I called Senator Luetkemeyer and asked him about the political climate in the Northland and told me, “As I’ve been campaigning, people in the Northland are concerned about two things: inflation and public safety. Rising prices at the grocery store are front-of-mind for most voters. People also want to make sure we’re keeping our community safe and supporting our police officers. Overall, I think the environment is trending favorably for republicans to have a good night on November 8.”

From there I went down to Jackson County where I caught up with Rep. Jon Patterson who is running, and I mean running, for House Floor Leader and new Rep. Chris Lonsdale, and Dakota Worrell (no kin to Todd Worrell who was once the victim of a terrorist attack in Jackson County) who is running in a very competitive race to unseat Rep. Robbie Sauls in Independence.

Doc Patterson said that thus far he has put around 35,000 miles on the car. “If a member wants to visit with me, wherever they are in the state, then I’m on the way.”

Lonsdale won a tough primary where he was the underdog, and Patterson says he will be a freshman to watch, “Chris won what was maybe the toughest primary in the state. It was a dogfight and he is one of the freshman members to watch.”

I tend to agree with him.

I asked him the how folks were sitting in north Clay County, “High energy. People are really wanting accountability from the federal government to the schools.”

Dakota is a young candidate, but Patterson is bullish on his chances as well in a good republican year. “Dakota is out-hitting doors every day. We are optimistic about his chances to flip that seat.” 

He says he is focused on his doors and is going to have knocked 3,000 before Election Day. 

From there I went to the KMOS studios in Warrensburg for our election special with Mike Mahoney, Jo Mannies, Jennifer Bukowsky, and Rep. Keri Ingle. To be honest with you I could listen to Jo and Mike talk politics all night, but we only had an hour. 

You can watch it here: https://www.kmos.org/news/2022-midterm/ 

In the end, the final US Senate predictions were:

Jo Mannies: Schmitt +9

Jennifer Bukowsky: Schmitt +18

Rep. Keri Ingle Busch +2

Mike Mahoney: Schmitt +11

Scott Faughn: I went Larry Pleus on Price is Right and went Schmitt +12.

After the debate, me and Mahoney had a couple beers at Fitters. We felt a little bad about our predictions so we ordered a Busch.

Well, I ordered a Busch Light, and he made me look like a wuss and went full Busch.

Scott Faughn

Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.

The post F-150 Campaign Tour with Scott Faughn: Kansas City appeared first on The Missouri Times.

He goes on to say that “the price of ground beef is up 36%”, which goes along with the Missouri Farm Bureau’s claim that “Cost of July 4th Cookout 17% Higher Compared to Year Ago“. 

“In the Senate, I’ll end the wasteful spending and put more money back in your pocket,” Schmitt says, after noting that Missourians have to pay over $700 a month due to inflation he claims Biden has created.

Schmitt has been leading in recent polling after winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate back in August. He is running against the Democratic Nomination winner, Trudy Busch Valentine, who went unmentioned in this ad.

Schmitt has stacked up quite the endorsements for his run for Senate, the most previous being Missouri Farm Bureau. “Attorney General Schmitt has been a staunch ally of rural Missourians at every level of public service. We need strong leaders to fight on behalf of Missouri’s farmers and ranchers against an activist administration, and he has already proven he is not afraid to speak up and work for us.” said Missouri Farm Bureau president Garrett Hawkins.

The General election is set to take place on Tuesday, November 8.

Brady Hays

Brady Hays is a 2023 graduate of the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in History. He is currently attending the University of Missouri School of Law and is on pace to graduate with his JD in 2026. He has been working for the Missouri Times since early March 0f 2022.

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