Despite anxiety about scandal-plagued Eric Greitens at high levels of Republican politics, there are others inside the GOP who believe he would easily win the general election for Senate in Missouri in 2022.
The former governor is the front-runner in the growing field of Republican primary candidates hoping to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunt. Greitens’s detractors worry that the eventual Democratic candidate could flip the seat next year by exploiting allegations of sexual misconduct and blackmail that forced him to resign as governor in 2018 to avoid impeachment by the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature.
But many Republican insiders have quietly concluded that however unsavory a character Greitens is, and would be, in the Senate, he would not jeopardize the party’s hold on the seat in the midterm elections or its drive to recapture the majority. Why? Greitens, they say, has successfully tied himself to former President Donald Trump, a popular figure in ruby-red Missouri.
“Unless someone can show me how they knock Greitens off the top conservative Trumpy line, he is still the favorite, and in this political environment, his lies and distortions about his abuse of women will probably be believed by Republican primary voters,” a veteran Republican operative in Missouri said Friday.
Plenty of Republican operatives remain skeptical — and worried.
“Eric Greitens is a sexual assaulter and a blackmailer; if he’s the Republican nominee, there’s a real chance Democrats win this seat,” Missouri Republican strategist Gregg Keller said. “That’s why so many Democrats, including former Gov. Jay Nixon, are giving this race a serious look or have already announced. All Republican efforts need to be bent toward ensuring our party doesn’t nominate a sociopath, which Greitens most certainly is.”
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Trump has not endorsed in the Republican primary, and leading contenders, such as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, are aggressively courting the former president. Schmitt has visited with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and winter residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Bedminster, New Jersey, at the golf club near New York City where he is spending the summer. Schmitt is also in regular contact with influential figures in Trump’s orbit.
Greitens has manufactured connections to Trump by hiring Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 campaign and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., to serve as the national chairwoman of his Senate bid. The former governor has also garnered the support of big names in Trumpworld. On Saturday, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, along with other prominent supporters of the 45th president, is headlining a Greitens campaign rally near St. Louis.
Trump, advised by some top Republicans to shun Greitens, is not happy with the impression this is creating. Politico Playbook’s Tara Palmeri, quoting an anonymous Trump adviser, reported the former president “thinks Greitens is problematic, and that Kim is annoying,” claiming Trump demanded: “Why the f*** is she working for him?” Trump is worried the scandal that cut short Greitens’s career as governor could undermine a Senate campaign, opening a path for a Democratic victory.
Greitens has been unapologetic in presenting himself as an avatar for Trump who will go to Washington and dedicate himself to the former president and his legislative program. “The main message of the primary election is, who will be the strongest defender of President Trump’s America First agenda?” a Greitens campaign spokesman said. “That’s clearly Greitens, judging by the support he’s received from some of Trump’s biggest allies.”
The Greitens super PAC recently received $2.5 million from Republican financier Richard Uihlein. The contribution is another sign that some GOP power players are warming to the former governor’s Senate bid and not being scared away by allegations he sexually assaulted and blackmailed a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair six years ago. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, was a rising star mentioned as a future presidential candidate prior to those revelations.
Greitens insists he has since been exonerated.
Meanwhile, the Schmitt campaign raised $1.3 million in the second quarter to finish the period with $1.1 million in cash on hand. The super PAC supporting the attorney general, Save Missouri Values, raised $1.5 million. Also running are Rep. Vicky Hartzler and Mark McCloskey, who garnered attention for facing criminal prosecution for waving a gun outside of his home as a march protesting racial injustice proceeded past his home.
Rep. Bill Long is poised to jump in, Republican insiders say, and has been heavily lobbying Trump for an endorsement, although he has so far been rebuffed.
Rep. Jason Smith and Rep. Ann Wagner continue to mull jumping into the 2022 Senate bid. Wagner was preparing to run for Senate in 2018 but demurred after prominent Republicans in Missouri and Washington coalesced around now-Sen. Josh Hawley as their consensus choice to challenge Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.
