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      Ties that bind: Missouri Senate candidate hopes Trump notices neckwear

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      Ties that bind: Missouri Senate candidate hopes Trump notices neckwearCongressman Billy Long seeks Trump’s endorsement for ‘the guy that was with you from day one. I mean, look at this tie’ Senate candidates endorsed by Donald Trump have struggled of late, from Sean Parnell’s withdrawal in Pennsylvania while denying allegations of domestic abuse to the former NFL star Herschel Walker angering party leaders with his run in Georgia.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead moreBut to one candidate for the Republican nomination in Missouri, Congressman Billy Long, the former president’s endorsement still carries the ultimate weight.“If he endorses in this race,” the 66-year-old told Politico, “I don’t care who he endorses, it’s over … And that’s what I’m trying to impress upon him is that, you know, ‘You need to get involved in this race and put an end to it.’”Long said he would tell the former president: “You’re looking at the guy that was with you from day one.’ Never ever left. I mean, look at this tie.”The former auctioneer duly showed off his neckwear, a gold striped number signed, apparently in his signature Sharpie marker, by Trump himself.Long said Trump signed the $37 tie in Nevada in 2016, when Long spoke on his behalf. Long has had – and auctioned off – other ties signed by the president, including a striking example featuring flags and caricatures which Long wore to the State of the Union in 2019.Trump’s own ties played a prominent role in the 2016 election and its aftermath.In 2015, Macy’s made news when it dropped Trump’s menswear line – many headlines said the retail giant was “cutting ties” – over his racist remarks about Mexicans at his campaign launch.In 2019, the former New Jersey governor and Trump ally Chris Christie revealed that Trump advised him to wear longer ties in order to look slimmer.Politico described Long as “built like a lineman” and said he spoke with a “thick ‘Missoura’ twang”. In Missoura’, whose other sitting senator is the Trump-supporting controversialist Josh Hawley, a large field is jostling to replace the retiring Roy Blunt.One candidate, Mark McCloskey, rose to fame in 2020 when he and his wife pointed guns at protesters for racial justice near their home in St Louis. Both pleaded guilty to misdemeanours. Another, Eric Greitens, resigned as governor in 2018, amid scandals over sex and campaign finance. Criminal charges were dropped.Speaking to Politico, Long called Greitens “Chuck Schumer’s candidate”, a reference to the Democratic leader who will defend control of the Senate next year, hoping to face weak or controversial Republicans in key states.Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedRead moreA spokesperson for Greitens told Politico: “Billy Long is a much better comedian than he is a Senate candidate.”Observers including Blunt said Long, who also has a habit of handing out fake money with Trump’s face on it, had a chance of winning Trump’s endorsement.But though Long voted to object to electoral college results in 2020 he has also recognised Joe Biden as president, thereby failing a key test in a party in Trump’s grip.Long told Politico he would not follow his leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, to Florida to worship the party’s golden idol.“I have people say: ‘Call him, call him every day. Go sit at Mar-a-Lago and tell him you’re not leaving till he endorses,’” Long said. “I’m smart enough to know that’s not going to win favour with Donald Trump.”Others might say that it would.TopicsMissouriUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Pleas for clemency grow ahead of Ernest Lee Johnson’s execution

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      MissouriPleas for clemency grow ahead of Ernest Lee Johnson’s execution Missouri Democrats Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver II join Pope in calls to governor for sentence to be set aside Edward HelmoreMon 4 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 4 Oct 2021 10.27 EDTPleas for clemency on behalf of Ernest Lee Johnson, who was convicted of a 1994 murder, are growing more frantic ahead of his scheduled execution by lethal injection in Missouri on Tuesday after the Pope and two members of the US Congress issued calls for the sentence to be set aside.In a statement last week, Pope Francis requested clemency for Johnson in a letter to Missouri governor Michael Parson. The letter did not deny that “grave crimes such as his deserve grave punishment” but called on Parson to consider “the simple fact of Mr Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life.” If carried out it will be the first execution by Missouri since May 2020.The Pope’s call for clemency has been joined by two of Missouri’s Democratic members of Congress, Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver II, who petitioned the governor to halt the execution.Bush and Cleaver, both members of the Congressional Black Caucus, urged the governor to acknowledge “the moral depravity of executions” and argued that Johnson’s execution perpetuates the same cycles of trauma and violence against Black people as “slavery and lynching did before it”.“The fact of the matter is that these death sentences are not about justice. They are about who has institutional power and who doesn’t,” they wrote. “Like slavery and lynching did before it, the death penalty perpetuates cycles of trauma, violence and state-sanctioned murder in Black and brown communities.”Advocates for the condemned man, including Bush and Cleaver, say that he has had developmental delays since birth, when he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome to a mother who battled addiction. Johnson, 61, has also had an operation to take out a tumor that removed as much as 20% of his brain tissue, the AP reported, which advocates say has further reduced his intellectual capacity.Johnson’s public defender, Jeremy Weis, has said that Johnson has scored between 67 and 77 in IQ tests and “meets all statutory and clinical definitions” of intellectual disability. Missouri law broadly defines intellectual disability as “substantial limitations in general functioning.”But last month, the Missouri supreme court ruled that Johnson is not, as he claims, intellectually disabled and denied his request for execution by firing squad based on his claim that death by lethal injection would cause severe pain.Johnson’s death sentence stems from February 1994 when he walked into a general store near his home in northeast Columbia and bludgeoned, stabbed, and shot three employees, Mary Bratcher, 46; Mable Scruggs, 57; and Fred Jones, 58, before hiding their bodies in a walk-in cooler and robbing the store for drug money.Johnson’s scheduled execution has highlighted racial and social inequities in the application of justice. Issuing a call for clemency, the Kansas City Star’s editorial board noted that Parson had swiftly pardoned Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a white St Louis couple who plead guilty to assault after waving weapons at Black Lives Matter demonstrators last year.The board criticized the governor for failing to convene a board of inquiry but said it did not “even dare to hope that the evidence that Johnson today has the awareness of a child might convince our governor to commute his sentence”.It added: “When the state, our state, does kill this man, as it almost certainly will, it will be yet another indictment of a system so bloodthirsty that it delights in vengeance against those who don’t even know why they’re being punished.”TopicsMissouriCapital punishmentUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      St. Louis Couple Who Aimed Guns at Protesters Plead Guilty to Misdemeanors

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      Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey of Missouri will pay a total of nearly $3,000 in fines and give up the weapons used in the confrontation.A St. Louis couple who gained national notoriety last year after they were filmed pointing guns at demonstrators walking near their home each pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge on Thursday and agreed to pay a total of nearly $3,000 in fines. The couple, both lawyers, also agreed to give up the guns they had brandished in the confrontation.Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment and will pay a $2,000 fine. Her husband, Mark, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault and will pay a $750 fine.As part of the plea deal, Ms. McCloskey gave up the Bryco handgun she brandished during the June 2020 confrontation, and Mr. McCloskey agreed to relinquish ownership of the weapon he used, an AR-15 rifle. Neither will face jail time under the plea deal.In a brief interview, Joel J. Schwartz, a lawyer for the McCloskeys, said, “They are very happy with the disposition of the case and will have the fine paid as early as possible and look forward with moving on with their life and focusing on his campaign for the U.S. Senate.”Outside the courthouse, Mr. McCloskey agreed with prosecutors that he had put the protesters in danger. “That’s what the guns were there for, and I’d do it again anytime the mob approaches me,” he said.Patricia McCloskey and her husband, Mark, aimed firearms at protesters who marched through their neighborhood last June.Lawrence Bryant/ReutersRichard Callahan, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, said in a statement that the plea agreement was reasonable, in part, because no shots had been fired, nobody had been injured and the McCloskeys had called the police. “The protesters, on the other hand, were a racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children, who simply made a wrong turn on their way to protest in front of the mayor’s house,” Mr. Callahan said.On June 28, 2020, protesters, many of whom were Black, marched past the McCloskeys’ home, which is on a private street, on their way to the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, a Democrat, who lives nearby. Ms. Krewson had angered local residents after she went on Facebook Live and read the names and addresses of people who had said the police should be defunded.The McCloskeys said they had felt they were in imminent danger from the protesters. Images of the couple pointing their weapons at protesters circulated widely, garnering national attention.The day after the protest, President Donald J. Trump retweeted a video of the gun-toting couple. In July, the Circuit Attorney’s Office in St. Louis filed felony charges against them. In August, they spoke at the Republican National Convention.The couple maintained that they had acted in self-defense, in order to prevent the demonstrators from entering their home and harming them. “I really thought it was storming the Bastille, that we would be dead and the house would be burned and there was nothing we could do about it,” Mr. McCloskey told KSDK, a local television station, last year. In an interview on Fox News, Mr. McCloskey said, “We chose to stop them from coming in.” Mr. McCloskey also told KSDK, “My wife doesn’t know anything about guns” but had felt compelled to defend their home.Republicans and conservatives rallied to the couple’s defense. Mr. Trump later said the prosecution of the couple was “a disgrace.” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, had said the case against the McCloskeys “is a politically motivated attempt to punish this family for exercising their Second Amendment rights.”The attention helped catapult Mr. McCloskey into politics. Last month he announced he would run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Roy Blunt, a Republican, who earlier announced he would not seek re-election next year. More

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      St Louis lawyer who pointed gun at BLM protesters announces Senate run

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      The St Louis man who brandished his gun at Black Lives Matter protesters last summer, Mark McCloskey, announced on Tuesday that he is running for Senate in Missouri.McCloskey told the Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he is running in the 2022 election. “If we don’t stand up now and take this country back, it’s going away,” McCloskey said on Tucker Carlson Tonight.McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, gained international notoriety after drawing their guns on peaceful protesters marching past their marble-faced palazzo home in June 2020. The incident was embraced by many Republicans and the couple, both personal injury attorneys in their 60s, spoke at the Republican national convention.McCloskey posted a campaign ad on Twitter that repeatedly warned of mob violence and said systemic racism does not exist. “I can promise you one thing, that when the mob comes to destroy our homes, our state and our country, I will defend them,” he said.In the ad, McCloskey references the incident that made him famous and repeated a lie about it that he has said many times before: “An angry mob marched to destroy my home and kill my family.”On 28 June 2020, Black Lives Matters protesters entered the McCloskeys’ private gated neighborhood on the way to a demonstration outside the home of Lyda Krewson, the St Louis mayor. The couple pointed their weapons at the crowd and argued with some protesters, but no shots were fired.The couple were later charged with a felony for unlawful use of a weapon in the incident.They pleaded not guilty and their case is set to go to trial in November. Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, a Republican, has said he would pardon the couple if they were convicted.The incident also drew attention to the couple’s near constant conflict with others, usually over private property.The St Louis Dispatch revealed last year that the McCloskeys had a long history of suing other people. The variety of legal actions includes Mark McCloskey suing a dog breeder in 1996 for selling him a German shepherd without papers and in 2013 threatening a Jewish congregation with legal action after they placed beehives outside their mansion’s northern wall. McCloskey destroyed the beehives before threatening the congregation with a restraining order. More

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      St. Louis Elects Tashaura Jones Its First Black Female Mayor

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      Tishaura Jones, the city’s treasurer, promised on Tuesday night not to stay silent on racial injustices and vowed to bring “fresh air” to the city.Tishaura Jones became the first Black woman elected mayor of St. Louis on Tuesday and later this month will begin leading a city racked with a high homicide rate, disturbances at the city jail and challenges related to the pandemic.Ms. Jones, the city’s treasurer, received about 52 percent of the vote over her opponent Alderwoman Cara Spencer’s nearly 48 percent, according to unofficial results posted to the city’s website. Ms. Jones will be sworn in on April 20.Ms. Jones, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.Ms. Spencer, also a Democrat, conceded on Tuesday night and later congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter, saying, “You have my support in making St. Louis the great city we know it can be.”This was the first mayoral election under the city’s new election-law overhaul, known as Proposition D. It requires candidates to run without partisan labels, and the two candidates with the most votes in a primary in March would face each other in a general runoff election the next month.In her victory speech, Ms. Jones reminded supporters of her campaign promises. “St. Louis, this is an opportunity for us to rise,” she said. “We are done ignoring the racism that has held our city and our region back.”Ms. Jones pledged that she would not stay silent when she saw racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or religious intolerance, adding, “I will not stay silent when I spot any injustice.”Transformational change would not be immediate, she said. “It will require a little patience, a little hard work, determination and the understanding that decades of problems would not be solved within days of solutions.”Ms. Jones, a graduate of Hampton University, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has spent the last 20 years as a public servant. In 2002, she was appointed as Democratic committeewoman of the Eighth Ward in the city of St. Louis, she served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, and she has served as the city’s treasurer since 2013, according to her campaign website. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. Louis in 2017.Ms. Jones will replace Lyda Krewson, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, who said last fall she would not seek a second term in office.Ms. Krewson congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter. “I am rooting for your success,” she said. “My administration and I are prepared to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”When Ms. Jones takes office, she will face a list of challenges, including a rise in violence. Last year, the city saw its highest homicide rate in 50 years with 262 murders, five fewer than the record set in 1993. There have been 46 homicides so far this year, according to the St. Louis Police Department.The city’s jail has also seen a growing number of disturbances in recent months, and on Sunday, inmates broke windows, set a fire and threw items onto the street below. A similar episode took place in February.Ms. Jones campaigned on improving the city’s response to the pandemic and pursuing policies to improve its public health infrastructure. Mobile and stationary vaccination clinics would also be established under her lead. St. Louis has about 36 positive cases per day on average, and about 14 percent of all St. Louis residents have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times databaseAs the city is promised more than $500 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, Ms. Jones also pledged relief for small businesses and those in need of rental and mortgage assistance.“It’s time for St. Louis to thrive,” Ms. Jones said Tuesday night. “It’s time to bring a breath of fresh air to our neighborhoods.” More

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      Republicans Fear Flawed Candidates Could Imperil Key Senate Seats

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      Races in Missouri and Alabama, with others to come, reflect the potential risks for a party in which loyalty to Donald Trump is the main criterion for securing nominations.The entry of two hard-right candidates this week into Senate races in Missouri and Alabama exposed the perils for Republicans of a political landscape in which former President Donald J. Trump is the only true north for grass-roots voters.Strong state parties, big donors and G.O.P. national leaders were once able to anoint a candidate, in order to avoid destructive demolition derbies in state primaries.But in the Trump era, the pursuit of his endorsement is all-consuming, and absent Mr. Trump’s blessing, there is no mechanism for clearing a cluttered primary field. With the former president focused elsewhere — on settling scores against Republicans who advanced his impeachment or showed insufficient loyalty — a combative Senate primary season is in store for the 2022 midterms, when Republicans who hope to regain the majority face a difficult map. They are fighting to hold on to five open seats after a wave of retirements of establishment figures, and even deep-red Missouri and Alabama pose potential headaches.A scandal-haunted former Missouri governor, Eric Greitens, entered the race on Monday to replace the retiring Senator Roy Blunt. His candidacy set off a four-alarm fire with state party leaders, who fear that Mr. Greitens may squeak through a crowded primary field, only to lose a winnable seat to a Democrat.In Alabama, the entry of Representative Mo Brooks, a staunch but lackluster Trump supporter, into the race for the seat being vacated by Senator Richard C. Shelby raised a different set of fears with activists: that Mr. Brooks, who badly lost a previous statewide race, would cause waves of Republican voters, especially women, to sit out the off-year election and crack open the door in a ruby red state for a Democrat.Both candidacies are likely to pose challenges for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who has weighed in to cull potentially flawed candidates in the past and has said he may do so again this time. Last year, a super PAC aligned with Mr. McConnell intervened in a Senate primary in Kansas against Kris Kobach, a polarizing figure whose candidacy threatened the loss of a seat that was ultimately won by the G.O.P. establishment’s favorite, Roger Marshall.Mr. Trump has so far stayed out of the potential pileups to fill the open Senate seats — the others to date are in Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Alabama and Missouri, both Republican strongholds, afford the G.O.P. a margin of error even with a flawed candidate, a cushion not available in the more competitive traditional battleground states.In announcing his candidacy on Fox News on Monday, Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, sought to appeal to Mr. Trump and Trump voters, boasting of having routed “antifa” from Missouri as governor and pledging to be a “fighter” who would be committed to “defending President Trump’s America First policies.”Mr. Greitens, who took office in 2017, resigned the next year amid accusations of physical and sexual abuse by a woman he had been involved with in an extramarital affair before his election. Still, he remains popular with a core of Republican voters. Many Republican officials fear that in a multicandidate primary, which appears likely, he could win with around 30 percent of the vote.“There is a high level of concern,” said Gregg Keller, a Republican strategist in Missouri, where Democrats have been shut out of major statewide victories for nearly a decade.Mr. Keller, who is unaligned in the race, said nominating Mr. Greitens would be “the only way Republicans stand a chance of losing this seat.” He added, “It would be an incredible self-own and would put the seat in play.”On Wednesday, a second candidate entered the race, Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who had joined a Texas-led lawsuit by attorneys general to overturn the 2020 election results, which was rejected by the Supreme Court. At least three other Republicans have shown interest in the race, including Representative Ann Wagner, a moderate from the St. Louis suburbs.Mr. Greitens claimed while announcing his candidacy that he had been “completely exonerated” in the scandals that led to his resignation. But he elided important details. Accused by a hair stylist of binding her hands, spanking her, taking seminude pictures and threatening to release them if she disclosed their affair, Mr. Greitens was charged with felony invasion of privacy. The case fell apart, but the Republican-led Legislature moved to impeach Mr. Greitens anyway. An explosive investigation by the Missouri House concluded that the woman’s accusations were credible.Representative Mo Brooks was one of the first Republicans to announce that he would object to the Electoral College certifying President Biden’s victory.Elijah Nouvelage/ReutersSeparately, the attorney general at the time, Josh Hawley, now the state’s junior senator, turned up evidence that led to a felony count against Mr. Greitens related to political fund-raising, which Mr. Hawley described as “serious charges.”Mr. Greitens, 46, stepped down in May 2018 after reaching a deal with prosecutors that led to the campaign finance charge being dropped. A state ethics commission later found he had not engaged in wrongdoing in the finance case.“His claim to have been totally exonerated is a fraud and misrepresentation of the facts,” said Peter Kinder, a former Republican lieutenant governor. “An overwhelmingly Republican Legislature was prepared to impeach him and was within days of doing that.”Mr. Greitens has both grass-roots supporters and high-profile enemies in the Missouri G.O.P., including Mr. Kinder, who lost to him in a 2016 primary for governor, and Mr. Hawley.After Mr. Blunt this month announced his plans to retire, Mr. Trump called Mr. Hawley to ask about whom he should support, according to a person familiar with the conversation. They agreed to stay in touch as the field develops, and Mr. Hawley could be expected to steer Mr. Trump away from the former governor.In an argumentative interview on Wednesday with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mr. Greitens said the Missouri House’s 24-page report about him had been “discredited,” but he would not say how. He claimed, without evidence, that his accuser, two of her friends and her former husband, all of whom testified under oath, were “lying.” “Why did you quit?” Mr. Hewitt asked Mr. Greitens, referring to his resignation. “SEALs don’t quit.”In Alabama, the fear of some Republicans about a lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Brooks, the highest-profile candidate in an emerging field, traces to the lacerating sting of 2017, when the Democrat Doug Jones won a Senate seat after G.O.P. voters failed to show up to support the party’s nominee, the scandal-plagued Roy Moore.Mr. Brooks, a six-term congressman from northern Alabama, was one of the first Republicans to announce that he would object to the Electoral College certifying President Biden’s victory. He faced calls for censure from Democrats after an incendiary speech he made at the pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6 before the riot at the Capitol. In announcing his candidacy on Monday, he aired once again his and Mr. Trump’s false accounts of the election. “In 2020, we had the worst voter fraud and election theft in history,” he said. Few individual cases and no evidence of widespread fraud have been confirmed.But in Alabama, Mr. Trump’s fraud narrative is hardly a controversial view among Republican voters. Both Mr. Brooks, 66, and the only other announced candidate to date, Lynda Blanchard — a major G.O.P. donor who was ambassador to Melania Trump’s native Slovenia — have aggressively sought Mr. Trump’s endorsement. But it is entirely possible he will withhold one in the interest of not alienating potential future allies, political observers say.The bigger danger with Mr. Brooks, in the view of some party strategists, is that he simply fails to excite Republican voters in an off-year election. He finished an unimpressive third in a 2017 primary to fill an open Senate seat, winning fewer than one in five Republican votes.“The danger becomes that there will be nothing to motivate Republicans to go to the polls,” said Angi Horn, a Republican strategist in Alabama, “which would put us at the peril that we have been in in the past, when a large majority of Republican voters did not see a candidate that motivated and inspired them to go vote.” More

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      Eric Greitens and Mo Brooks Announce Senate Bids in Missouri and Alabama

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      The hard-right Republicans’ entry to the races for open Senate seats heralded fiercely contested G.O.P. primaries in the two deeply conservative states.A pair of hard-right politicians announced Senate bids in Missouri and Alabama on Monday night, igniting what are expected to be contentious primary races for open seats in two conservative states.In Missouri, Eric Greitens, the former governor who resignedafter a scandal involving allegations of sexual misconduct and blackmail, said he would run for the seat being vacated by Senator Roy Blunt, who surprised Republicans this month when he announced plans to retire after next year. And in Alabama, Representative Mo Brooks, a staunch backer of former President Donald J. Trump, joined the race to succeed Senator Richard Shelby, who has also said he will not seek re-election in 2022.The two announcements, along with a new conservative challenge to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who withstood Mr. Trump’s pressure to overturn the state’s election results last year, offer the clearest signal yet that Republicans may face the kind of combative primary season some party leaders had hoped to avoid.Since Mr. Trump lost the election, Republicans have struggled to unify around a consistent message against the new administration, spending far more time fighting among themselves over loyalty to the former president and the culture war issues that animate his base.Historically, the president’s party loses seats in its first midterm elections, as the national mood turns against the new administration. But Republicans will face a challenging map in 2022, with few opportunities to flip Democratic-held seats. Party leaders fear that nominating far-right candidates could complicate their ability to hold seats amid a series of Republican retirements, even in more conservative states like Alabama and Missouri.Mr. Brooks cast himself as one of the former president’s strongest supporters as he announced his Senate bid at a Huntsville gun range, where he was introduced by Stephen Miller, a former adviser to Mr. Trump.“I have stood by his side during two impeachment hoaxes, during the Russian collusion hoax and in the fight for honest and accurate elections,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “The president knows that. The voters of Alabama know that, and they appreciate it.”Mr. Brooks, 66, a six-term congressman, was one of the first members of Congress to publicly declare that he would object to certifying President Biden’s election victory. He faced calls for censure from Democrats after remarking at the rally that preceded the Capitol riot in January that it was time to “start taking down names and kicking ass.” Mr. Brooks has said the phrase was misconstrued as advocating for the violence that followed.“Nobody has had President Trump’s back more over the last four years than Mo Brooks,” Mr. Miller said in his opening remarks. “Now I need you to have his back.”Polling shows that the vast majority of Republican voters remain devoted to the former president. In a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll last month, nearly half of Trump voters even said they would abandon the G.O.P. completely and join a Trump party if he decided to create one.But Mr. Brooks isn’t the only Republican in the race eager for Mr. Trump’s blessing in a state that the former president won by over 25 percentage points. Lynda Blanchard, a businesswoman and former Trump ambassador, has already entered the contest, which is expected to attract a number of other candidates.Mr. Greitens, 46, is also running under the banner of the former president, though it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will endorse his bid.Once considered a rising Republican star, Mr. Greitens faced months of allegations, criminal charges, angry denials and court proceedings after explosive allegations of an affair, sexual misconduct and blackmail involving his former hairstylist became public. He resigned in 2018, less than two years into his term; he was never convicted of a crime.Renounced by his biggest donors and former strategists, Mr. Greitens has been championed by some in Mr. Trump’s orbit and is a frequent guest on a podcast hosted by the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.In an interview on Fox News announcing his bid, Mr. Greitens claimed he had been “exonerated” by investigators and had resigned only for his family.The prospect of the disgraced former governor running again has alarmed some Republicans who fear he could cost the party what is considered to be a relatively safe seat. Some strategists worry that Mr. Greitens could emerge with a plurality if a large number of Republican candidates enter the race. More

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      Roy Blunt of Missouri, No. 4 Senate Republican, Plans to Retire

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRoy Blunt of Missouri, No. 4 Senate Republican, Plans to RetireMr. Blunt, a fixture of Republican leadership in Congress who had been known for his ability to work with both parties, said he would not seek re-election in 2022.Republicans are confident they can hold Senator Roy Blunt’s seat in a state that has swung hard to the right over the last decade.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesMarch 8, 2021Updated 6:34 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 Senate Republican, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election in 2022, the latest in a string of party veterans who have opted to exit Congress as the G.O.P. remakes itself in the mold of former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Blunt, a fixture of the Republican establishment, had told reporters in January that he was planning to run for a third term and had taken steps to avoid alienating the former president. But with his surprise announcement on Monday, he joined a growing group of institutionalists who have chosen to leave rather than potentially subject themselves to party primaries that promise to be contests of which candidate can tie himself more closely to Mr. Trump.“After 14 general election victories — three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives and four statewide elections — I won’t be a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate next year,” Mr. Blunt, 71, said in a two-minute video posted on social media.Speaking later to reporters in Springfield, Mo., Mr. Blunt predicted he would have won Mr. Trump’s endorsement and prevailed if he had run again, but said he did not want to commit to another eight years of campaigning and service in Congress.“I felt good about getting elected, but what I felt less good about was whether I wanted to go from 26 years in the Congress to 32 years in the Congress and maybe eliminate the other things I might get a chance to do,” he said.Republicans are confident they can hold his seat in a state that has swung hard to the right over the last decade. Still, Mr. Blunt’s departure adds to a brain drain already underway among Senate Republicans.A bipartisan deal maker and stalwart of Washington social circles known for well-tailored suits and disarming charm, he is the rare figure who has served in high-ranking posts in both House and Senate leadership. Mr. Blunt was also in charge of planning President Biden’s inauguration in January, a delicate task that required him to navigate explosive political crosscurrents and the threat of violence after the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol.His decision not to seek another term follows similar ones by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, one of Republicans’ leading policy minds and a seeker of bipartisan compromises; Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, a deal-making former chairman of the Appropriations Committee; and Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, a top party voice on free-market economics. Republicans are still closely watching Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, 87, their longest-serving member, to see if he will seek another term.In their place has emerged a crop of Trump acolytes who have mirrored the former president’s combative style, shunned compromise with Democrats and so far been more willing to buck Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the long-serving top Republican leader with whom Mr. Blunt closely allied himself.“There are two kinds of politicians in Washington — those who want to make a point, and those who want to make a difference. Senator Blunt always worked to make a difference,” said Antonia Ferrier, a former longtime Republican aide who worked for Mr. Blunt in the House and later for Mr. McConnell. “There is no question that his departure, on top of those like Senators Alexander and Shelby, leaves a hole of those who know how to forge bipartisan legislative deals.”In a fawning statement, Mr. McConnell called Mr. Blunt a “policy heavyweight” who had helped bring home legislative victories for Republicans and the Senate as a whole. Among Mr. Blunt’s proudest were billions of dollars in new funding he helped secure as an appropriator for medical research, including for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and mental health. He was also a savvy political tactician who was talked about both as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell and as a sought-after negotiating partner for Democrats.Those qualities, once prized in government, have slowly become political liabilities among Republican primary voters whose loyalty to Mr. Trump and distrust of official Washington have reshaped the party. Mr. Blunt had not formally drawn a primary challenger, but his close alliance with Mr. McConnell, who has openly sought to purge Mr. Trump from the party, and his status as a consummate Washington insider put him at risk.Eric Greitens, a Republican who resigned as Missouri’s governor in a cloud of scandal in 2018, said last week that he was “evaluating” whether to challenge Mr. Blunt in a primary. Mr. Greitens, a decorated member of the Navy SEALs, has sought to position himself as an heir to Mr. Trump and accused Mr. Blunt of inadequately backing him.“It’s not enough to have an ‘R’ behind their name. We have to have people who are willing to take on the establishment to actually fight against the swamp,” Mr. Greitens told a St. Louis radio station.Mr. Blunt had only occasionally criticized Mr. Trump during his four years in office, careful not to anger the former president who helped him secure a narrow victory in 2016.The Capitol riot proved a more difficult path to walk. Afterward, Mr. Blunt broke with most of Missouri’s Republican delegation and voted to confirm Mr. Biden’s election victory after the attack. He called Mr. Trump’s actions “clearly reckless” and said Jan. 6 had been “a sad and terrible day in the history of the country.” But he vocally opposed Mr. Trump’s impeachment.Mr. Blunt had no cross words for either Mr. Trump or Mr. Greitens on Monday, but he warned against the ascendant brand of politics in his party focused not on solving problems for people but on drawing lines in the sand and picking fights.“The country in the last decade or so has sort of fallen off the edge of too many politicians saying, ‘If you’ll vote for me, I’ll never compromise on anything,’” he told reporters in Springfield. “That is a philosophy that particularly does not work in a democracy.”Among other Republicans considering running for the seat are Jay Ashcroft, the Missouri secretary of state; Eric Schmitt, the attorney general; Jean Evans, a former state party leader; Mike Kehoe, the lieutenant governor; Representatives Jason Smith and Ann Wagner; and Carl Edwards, a former NASCAR driver.With Republicans’ newfound dominance in Missouri, statewide contests have increasingly been decided in G.O.P. primaries. But John Hancock, a former state party chairman, warned that there was always a risk that so many ambitious young Republicans vying for the nomination could lead to a “divisive primary” backfiring.“There are benefits and detriments to having a deep bench,” he said.Democrats, who have lost nearly every race for statewide office over the last decade, have no clear front-runner at the moment.Scott Sifton, a veteran of the Missouri statehouse, has already jumped into the race and put together a full campaign team. Democrats in the state have suggested one of its two Democratic members of Congress, Cori Bush of St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver II of Kansas City, could also run. And Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, expressed interest on Monday.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More