When this seat was last contested in 2016, a handful of forecasters considered it a toss up or lean Republican at most, expecting Jason Kander, Missouri’s young, charismatic secretary of state to give incumbent Republican Roy Blunt a run for his money. The race was certainly close – Blunt won less than 50% of the vote, and by a margin of less than three points – but its final outcome, paired with Josh Hawley’s defeat of incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in 2018, solidified Missouri’s shift from true bellwether (it voted for the presidential victor in every election between 1960 and 2004, and was the closest state in 2008) to a safe Republican state.

Any chances of that trend reversing were definitively snuffed out when incumbent Attorney General Eric Schmitt defeated former Governor Eric Greitens in the Show Me State’s Republican primary. Greitens, of course, resigned as governor after the Missouri General Assembly began considering impeachment against him amid revelations that he had an extramarital affair with his hairdresser, assaulted her and threatened her with blackmail, and violated campaign finance laws to boot. But despite sharing an endorsement from former President Donald Trump with Schmitt (don’t ask), Greitens would only place in third, behind both the eventual victor and second place finisher Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler.

Schmitt has made a name for himself as one of the most conservative attorneys general in the country, suing the People’s Republic of China for suppressing information related to COVID-19, suing Missouri public schools for enforcing mask mandates, and suing the Biden administration for mandating coronavirus vaccines for healthcare workers. He also signed on to Texas v. Pennsylvania, the Hail Mary court case that tried to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election, and filed an amicus brief in Bostock v. Clayton County, arguing that the Civil Rights Act does not protect individuals experiencing workplace discrimination because of their sexual orientation (Schmitt’s side would lose both of these cases). In other words, Schmitt is about as conservative as they come and a rabid Trump loyalist, pledging not to support Mitch McConnell for Republican Senate Leader and promising to take “a wrecking ball” to the Department of Justice after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. 

Schmitt’s opponent is Trudy Busch Valentine, a retired nurse and scion of the Busch brewing family. While the results of the abortion referendum in neighboring Kansas may give Busch Valentine some hope that the issue can elevate her to an upset against Schmitt (who effectively ended abortion in the state after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that overturned the national right to an abortion), her odds are still long, and her family isn’t doing her any favors, either. Her brothers Peter and Andy hosted fundraisers for Schmitt and Greitens, respectively, on a farm they co-own with Busch Valentine, and very nearly hosted an NRA event mere days after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas until she intervened. With family like that, who needs an opponent?

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