(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Wood abandons independent bid for Missouri’s US Senate seat [1]
['Jack Suntrup', 'Robert Cohen']
Date: 2022-08
JEFFERSON CITY — John Wood, a former investigator for the Jan. 6 committee who launched an independent bid for U.S. Senate in Missouri, said Tuesday he was withdrawing from the race.
Wood, who positioned himself as a conservative alternative to the Democratic and Republican nominees, said there was no path forward for his bid after controversial ex-Gov. Eric Greitens lost to Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Aug. 2 in the Republican primary.
Wood’s exit sets up a more conventional contest for Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat on Nov. 8, doing away with the possibility that an independent would act as a spoiler.
Schmitt faces Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine in the race. Libertarian Jonathan Dine and Constitution Party candidate Paul Venable also appear on the ballot.
Following Wood’s announcement, Valentine issued a statement inviting “any independent-minded Missourian” to join her campaign. She called Schmitt a “ladder-climbing career politician with a disturbing track record of selling out hardworking Missourians.”
“I remain the only candidate who can’t be bought and am solely focused on addressing the real issues that matter to people, including protecting a woman’s freedom to make health care decisions without government mandates and opposing the sale of our farmland to foreign countries,” Valentine said.
Schmitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wood, 52, of Kansas City, submitted more than 20,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office on Aug. 1 to make the November ballot. A spokesman for the secretary of state said Tuesday afternoon that Wood had not yet officially withdrawn, but that the office had been notified Wood’s exit was forthcoming.
When Wood does withdraw, the signature verification process to put Wood on the ballot would stop, the spokesman said.
“While I think I could have beaten Eric Greitens, Missouri no longer faces the risk of Greitens as our next U.S. Senator,” Wood said in a statement.
Wood, who was supported by former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, said when he turned in his signatures that he wasn’t worried about potentially facing Schmitt and Valentine in the general election.
At the time, Valentine was facing Lucas Kunce in the Democratic primary, who like Greitens had cultivated a hard-charging persona during the campaign.
“I think he’s very divisive,” Wood said of Schmitt at the time. “And I really don’t know that much about Trudy Busch Valentine, except I know she’s going to support Chuck Schumer for majority leader.”
On Tuesday, Wood didn’t endorse either of his main competitors.
“While I have significant differences of opinion with both the Republican and Democratic nominees, it has become evident there is not a realistic path to victory for me as an independent candidate,” he said.
“I made the decision to run for the United States Senate when Eric Greitens was the favorite for the Republican nomination,” Wood said.
“That would have been unacceptable, embarrassing, and dangerous for my party, my state, and my country,” he said. “I believed Missouri voters deserved a truly principled, conservative choice this November and so did more than 22,000 Missourians who helped secure my position on the ballot.”
Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, in February said an independent “must” run for the open Senate seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican.
At the time, Danforth touted polling showing an independent who promotes unity instead of division would have a strong chance of winning.
In June, Danforth got his wish when Wood, who had worked in Danforth’s Senate office early in his career, announced he was running for the seat.
Danforth’s PAC, the Missouri Stands United PAC, had spent nearly $3.6 million to boost Wood, according to a tally by Open Secrets.
“I of course understand and sympathize with John’s decision. The path to electoral victory here became exceedingly narrow once Eric Schmitt, rather than Eric Greitens, won the Republican nomination,” Danforth said Tuesday.
“We have reached a point in our country where political views turn family members against family members, friends against friends; where people with different views are seen as enemies to be hated and even fought rather than as simply fellow Americans with different perspectives,” Danforth said.
“And our politicians are doing everything they can to promote these divisions because they ‘energize’ their base and help them win primary elections,” he said.
“John Wood wants to bring people together — not fan and exploit their differences for his own gain like President Trump and his leading champions, one of whom is Eric Schmitt,” Danforth said.
“Since 2020, the No. 1 issue Trump has used to divide this country is his assertion that the election was rigged against him — a whopper known as the Big Lie,” Danforth said.
He said that while Americans “are used to the idea that their politicians sometimes lie,” the “Big Lie” is a “direct attack on American democracy and the Constitutional structure that makes it work.”
“Trump invented the Big Lie and Eric Schmitt has been a leader in sustaining and spreading it,” Danforth said. “Schmitt hasn’t just gone along with the Big Lie. He has been its great and eager champion. In my book that’s disqualifying.”
Schmitt has picked up endorsements from a number of leading Republicans, including former U.S. Sens. John Ashcroft, Kit Bond and Jim Talent. He also has been endorsed by incumbents Blunt and Josh Hawley. On the eve of the GOP primary, Schmitt, along with Greitens, also received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/wood-abandons-independent-bid-for-missouri-s-us-senate-seat/article_ecbe82c8-76fb-5b12-a1df-2adb27c78aa7.html
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
