COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday with surprising ease, ending months of worry among GOP leaders that scandal-scarred former Gov. Eric Greitens might win the primary but jeopardize what should be a reliably red seat in November.
With more than two-thirds of results in, Schmitt had more votes than his nearest two competitors — U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler and Greitens — combined, turning what was expected to be a tight race into a blowout.
“I’m proud of my working-class roots, and I’m going to Washington to fight for working families, defeating socialism, and leading the fight to save America,” Schmitt said in his victory speech in suburban St. Louis.
Greitens told a downcast crowd in another St. Louis suburb to “go home with strength and pride.”
"God has a plan,” Greitens said. “It doesn’t always work on our timeline, but it does work on his. Sometimes we have to practice patience.”
Greitens resigned four years ago following a sex scandal, two criminal charges that were eventually dropped and a legislative investigation that could have led to impeachment hearings. This year, his ex-wife accused him of abuse.
Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s announcement last year that he would not seek a third term set off a frenzy for his job, with nearly three dozen people in the two major parties filing to run. The Democratic race, largely a showdown of Marine veteran Lucas Kunce and Anheuser-Busch heiress Trudy Busch Valentine, had not yet been called late Tuesday.
Schmitt defeated a field that also included Hartzler, U.S. Rep. Billy Long and Mark McCloskey, who gained notoriety in 2020 when he and his wife pointed guns at racial injustice protesters outside their home.
Voter Darrel Durham, a 63-year-old heavy equipment operator from Columbia, said he thinks Schmitt can bring a new voice to Washington.
“I like all of his positions on draining the swamp,” Durham said.
On Monday, former President Donald Trump expressed support for “ERIC,” presumably meaning either Schmitt or Greitens, without picking between them. There was a third Eric in the Republican primary, comedian and Navy veteran Eric McElroy.
“I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” Trump wrote.
Richard Greenup, a 66-year-old computer programmer from Columbia, said he wants “somebody that’s going to support Trump” and that he chose Schmitt over Greitens because, “good or bad, Schmitt, I don’t think, has that baggage.”
Greitens, a former Navy SEAL officer and Rhodes scholar, had been governor for a year when in January 2018 he confirmed a TV report about a 2015 extramarital affair. He was subsequently charged with felony invasion of privacy for allegedly taking a nude photo of the woman and using it to keep her quiet. That charge was dropped months later amid allegations that the chief investigator and local prosecutor mishandled the investigation.
Greitens, 48, says he was the victim of a political hit.
He faced a second charge accusing him of illegally using a donor list from a charity he founded to raise money for his campaign. That was dropped when he resigned in June 2018 after the Missouri House began an impeachment investigation.
This year, Greitens' ex-wife accused him of abuse in an affidavit in a child custody case. She cited one instance where he allegedly slapped their then-3-year-old son's face and yanked him by the hair. In another, she accused him of pushing her to the ground.
Eric Greitens denied the allegations and accused his ex-wife of colluding with Republican stalwarts such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to sabotage his campaign. Sheena Greitens said she worked with no one.
Greitens also drew criticism for a June campaign video showing him brandishing a shotgun and declaring he’s hunting RINOs, or Republicans in name only.
Schmitt, 47, has gained attention for lawsuits that critics contend are politically motivated. He sued China over the coronavirus; school districts over mask mandates; and the city of St. Louis over its plan to provide $1 million for women to travel out of state for abortions.
“I’ve always been a fighter and as your attorney general I have fought in court to protect our those liberties,” Schmitt said in his victory speech, citing mask and vaccine mandates, among other things.
Schmitt and the Democratic winner, Trudy Busch Valentine, will face an independent candidate who has significant financial support. John Wood, 52, a lifelong Republican, former U.S. attorney and most recently a top investigator for the U.S. House committee examining the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, has the backing of a political action committee led by former Republican Sen. John Danforth.