Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt already has his sights set on 2016.
The Republican senator’s re-election campaign will be the beneficiary Tuesday evening of an “Election Night Reception” at the St. Louis home of financial executive Rex Sinquefield and his wife Jeanne.
Tickets for the Blunt fundraiser, which is scheduled to end when polls close at 7 p.m. local time, range from $1,000 a person to as much as $10,400 a couple.
Though Sinquefield is Missouri’s top political donor, federal campaign donation limits will put a cap at how much he can personally give to Blunt. This early fundraising for Blunt is a likely effort to deter a primary opponent.
Blunt is considered a relatively moderate senator by conservative organizations such as Heritage Action, which currently gives Blunt a 51 percent on their scorecard.
If all goes as planned, Blunt will be seeking re-election after spending two years as part of the new Republican Senate majority.
Republicans would be working in 2016 to keep their Senate majority as well as to win back the White House after eight years of President Obama.
Blunt represented Missouri’s 7th Congressional District from 1997 until his election to the Senate in 2010. He defeated Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan 54 percent to 41 percent to claim the empty seat left by retiring Republican Sen. Kit Bond, according to election data compiled by the Associated Press.
Missouri was long considered both a swing state and a bellwether state, but the last presidential election signaled the state’s shift toward a more consistently conservative electorate.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney won Missouri’s 2012 presidential vote with nearly 54 percent to President Obama’s nearly 44 percent.
However, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill blew away her Republican challenger Todd Akin, garnering nearly 55 percent to just over 39 percent for Akin after the Republican’s controversial remarks about “legitimate rape” three months before the election, according to the Washington Post.
As of the end of the third quarter, Blunt had about $1.8 million in the bank, according to the Post.
