Schmitt joins Greitens in 2022 GOP battle for retiring Blunt’s U.S. Senate seat

(The Center Square) – As expected, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has announced he will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Roy Blunt in 2022.

“Washington, D.C. needs more fighters, needs more reinforcements to save America, so after a lot of reflection, support from folks back home and on behalf of the people of the great state of Missouri, I’m announcing my candidacy for United States Senate,” Schmitt said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning.

Schmitt faces a Republican primary battle with at least one other GOP candidate, former Gov. Eric Greitens, who declared his candidacy Monday also on Fox News using similar language.

“I think now the people of Missouri need a fighter in the United States Senate and they need somebody who’s going to go — as I will, as I am committed to do — to defend President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies and also to protecting the people of Missouri from Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s radical leftist agenda,” Greitens told Fox News host Bret Baier.

Blunt, 71, who has been active in Missouri politics for nearly 50 years, announced on March 8 that he would not seek a fourth six-year term in the U.S. Senate.

Thus far, only Schmitt and Greitens have declared candidacies and it’s likely the attorney general and former governor would be the favorites in a primary battle, which could dissuade others to enter the race.

U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin and Jason Smith, R-Salem, are among other candidates being eyed by state Republicans to vie for the Senate seat.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who would have been considered the frontrunner, and Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, have bowed out.

Schmitt told ‘Fox & Friends’ that he will dedicate his remaining time as attorney general to defending Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda and “prosperity.”

“I think you look around and increasingly it feels like our culture and our country is slipping away, and all the levers of power right now in Washington, D.C., are tilted towards the Democrats,” Schmitt said.

Schmitt, a former state senator, was appointed attorney general in 2019 and won a full term in November’s election.

As vice chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association, he drew national scorn for a Jan. 5 robocall urging supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol to “stop the steal” – a reference to Trump’s baseless election fraud claims. The next day, a mob stormed the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

Schmitt denies knowledge of the robocall but, if anything, that will be an asset in trying to out-Trump Greitens in a GOP primary.

Greitens was elected Missouri’s first Jewish governor in 2016 and resigned in June 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and blackmail after an alleged affair with a hairdresser. His campaign was also fined $178,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission for misreporting campaign funds and misuse of donor lists.

“We resigned because at the time it was what I needed to do for the people who I love the most. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do because I knew that all these accusations were false,” he said.

Greitens said he was exonerated, but that’s untrue. He left office after Hawley, then state Attorney General, determined claims against him were credible and demanded he resign.

“You can lose the battle but still stay in the war,” Greitens said. “The fact is, right now the people of Missouri need a fighter. That is when I’ve done my entire life and that’s what I’m going to continue to do for them in the United States Senate.”

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