Not everyone is ready to rally around Josh Hawley’s still-tentative bid for the U.S. Senate.
Two other Republican contenders said they have no intention of following in the footsteps of Missouri Treasurer Eric Schmitt, who on Tuesday said he would not run for the seat and instead declared his support for Hawley, Missouri’s attorney general.
Both Austin Petersen, a Kansas City publisher, and Tony Monetti, a former military pilot from Warrensburg, said they would remain in the GOP primary race. And they each portrayed themselves as outsiders running against the party establishment.
“I’m the outsider, I’m the underdog,” Petersen told the News-Leader on Wednesday.
Petersen was recently in Washington to meet with conservatives and deep-pocketed donors — but not Republican Party leaders. He said no one has pressured him to drop out, but some party bigwigs in Missouri and Washington have ignored his requests for meetings.
“They want Josh Hawley,” he said. “Why don’t we just cancel the primary? We could just let (Senate Republican leader) Mitch McConnell and (House Speaker) Paul Ryan and those guys pick the candidate.”
Monetti, who is running as a conservative in the mold of Gov. Eric Greitens, declined to say whether he had been pressured to drop out of the race. But like Petersen, he cast himself as a foe of the GOP elite.
“The establishment probably doesn’t want someone like me,” he said. “I won’t be controlled by these people, and they probably don’t like that about me.”
A spokesman for Hawley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hawley set up his Senate fundraising committee earlier this month amid intense pressure from big-name Republican politicians and donors eager for an A-list candidate to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.
McCaskill is a top target for Senate Republicans, who see her as one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election in 2018.
It seems unlikely that either Monetti or Petersen will have the resources to compete with Hawley for the GOP nomination. The attorney general already has deep support from Missouri’s wealthiest GOP contributors. And earlier this week, Politico reported that one conservative outside group, the Club for Growth, had already raised $10 million to support Hawley.
But the two lesser-known contenders said they would count on “grass-roots” support to fuel their respective campaigns.
Petersen said he could draw clear distinctions on major issues with Hawley, touting his support for decriminalizing prostitution and ending the war on drugs.
“When it comes to social issues, the government needs to stay out,” he said, calling himself a “liberty Republican” on such matters.
Said Monetti: “This is going to be a grass-roots victory just like Eric Greitens and Trump. The silent majority has spoken in this country, and the people are sick and tired of what these guys are doing to us.”
