Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe won the Republican primary for governor on Tuesday after courting voters with the promise of experienced and pragmatic conservative leadership.
Kehoe, a 62-year-old former Jefferson City car dealer who spent 19 years climbing to the pinnacle of Missouri politics, stands at the precipice of becoming the 58th governor of the deeply conservative state. He has vowed to offer a stabilizing presence and avoid the bombast that now often marks the state’s GOP politics.
The Associated Press called the race for Kehoe at 10:10 p.m. Kehoe’s two major rivals — Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel — both conceded the race. Kehoe had just under 40% of the vote, according to results compiled by the AP. Eigel had about 32% and Ashcroft had about 23%, with 93% of the vote counted. Six other minor candidates were also in the race.
Kehoe will face Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade of Springfield in the November general election. Quade defeated Springfield businessman Mike Hamra in the Democratic primary.
Kehoe was expected to speak to supporters in Jefferson City. Kehoe’s supporters, many donning green-colored clothes, began trickling into his election night watch party at Capital Bluffs Event Center in Jefferson City around 7:30 p.m. By 8 p.m., the room was filled as supporters sipped on wine and beer.
In the days leading up to the election, Kehoe called the contest a “watershed moment” that would determine the course of the state – a phrase that underscored the deep contrast between him and his opponents. Ashcroft said he would adopt an outsider’s perspective despite belonging to a storied political family, while Eigel pushed extreme proposals, including a promise to conduct mass arrests of migrants.
“I’m not a screamer and a holler. I’m not a guy who’s going to stand up and tell you how great I am. I’m not going to stand up and tell you I’m more conservative than somebody else,” Kehoe said during a campaign stop in Jackson County last month.
Ashcroft, sounding dejected, urged supporters in Springfield to support Kehoe.
“I want to ask all Missourians to join me in asking God to bless Mike Kehoe as he’s the Republican nominee for governor,” Ashcroft said.
Kehoe will now turn his focus toward the general election. While saying he is prepared to fight hard ahead of November, the lieutenant governor has also told supporters that the primary election would decide who would be the next governor given Missouri’s Republican tilt.
Indeed, Kehoe stands a strong chance of winning the general election. Democrats have struggled to win statewide elections amid Republican dominance. Kehoe has also often avoided the kind of abrasive statements that have characterized the Ashcroft and Eigel’s campaigns and would risk alienating general election voters.
“Mike’s one of those guys that doesn’t need a lot of headlines, he just does the work,” said state Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican who supports Kehoe.
“Everybody in the Republican Party says they’re a conservative now … Mike is a conservative that can govern,” Cierpiot said. “And there’s a difference between blowing the place up and governing.”
Democrats plan to aggressively fight, however, and will be aided by one of the party’s most potent issues – abortion. Voters in November are expected to be asked whether to approve a state constitutional amendment that would overturn Missouri’s near-total abortion ban.
The amendment may help drive up Democratic turnout in a presidential election year in which Republican voters are expected to show up for former President Donald Trump, who endorsed all three major GOP candidates for governor. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley – a lightning rod of Democratic anger – is also up for reelection.
“There’s no question that Republican politicians in Missouri are suffering from gross overconfidence and are therefore only running primary campaigns and at some point that he is going to come back to bite them,” said Jason Kander, a former Democratic secretary of state.
Kehoe’s victory was powered by a sprawling statewide network of organizations who endorsed the former state senator, then devoted significant resources to promoting his candidacy and turning out voters. He secured the endorsements of a host of public safety organizations, agricultural groups and business associations.
While final figures weren’t available, as of late July, Kehoe’s campaign and a supporting PAC reported more than $11.4 million in receipts. Eigel’s campaign and a supporting PAC have reported $5.8 million in receipts, and Ashcroft’s campaign and supporting PAC have reported $4.2 million, according to reports filed last week with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Kehoe’s political climb
Kehoe got his start in politics with a 2005 appointment to the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, followed by election to the Missouri Senate in 2010. Gov. Mike Parson picked Kehoe to become lieutenant governor in 2018 after Parson, then the lieutenant governor, became governor following the resignation of Eric Greitens. Kehoe then won election to a full term in 2020.
Kehoe grew up in the St. Louis area and was raised by a single mom. As a teen, he began washing cars, which led him into the world of car sales. He is credited in his 20s with helping turn around Osage Industries, a van conversion and ambulance manufacturing company in central Missouri, before buying a Jefferson City Ford dealership in 1992 and beginning to build a public name around the capital.
In the current race, Kehoe enjoyed the backing of Parson, who is term-limited and will leave office in January. The similarities between the two men’s agendas were striking.
Both emphasized the importance of economic development, which is crucial to Missouri’s economic future and earned Kehoe goodwill across the state. Kehoe, for instance, was the only major GOP candidate to voice a willingness to use state resources to ensure the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals remain in Missouri.
But economic development wasn’t necessarily a red hot topic among Republican primary voters – and Kehoe’s triumph wasn’t assured.
Ashcroft and Eigel ran aggressive campaigns that sought to paint themselves as the true conservatives in the race. They attacked Kehoe as soft on Chinese ownership of Missouri land, pointing to a 2013 vote by Kehoe, then a state senator, to lift the state’s ban on the foreign ownership of agricultural land. Kehoe now says he supports a ban and has attacked Ashcroft and Eigel in return.
“What we need in Jefferson City is not more good cops in statewide office that are going to look for reasons to compromise and bring the swamp together,” Eigel told supporters at a rally in the Kansas City area last week.
To be sure, Kehoe also engaged in red-meat politics. He voiced support for Trump and promised – often in vague terms – to help crackdown on illegal immigration and work to block fentanyl from China from coming into the state.
Still, as a candidate Kehoe appeared most comfortable focusing on traditional Republican themes of lowering taxes and cutting regulations.
Kehoe and Ashcroft appeared to battle for the lead for much of the spring and summer, according to publicly-available polling, with Eigel typically in third. The final poll released publicly, from Remington Research Group and conducted in late July, showed Kehoe and Ashcroft tied at 29%.
