I don't know anything about the people running for these positions.

What's there to know about them?

I'll tell you what I know, hopefully without telling you what I think of them . . .

Lieutenant Governor

The credible candidates are Lincoln Hough, Holly Rehder and David Wasinger.

Hough was Senate Appropriations Chair in 2023 and '24, making him responsible for crafting the state budget (along with House Budget Chair Cody Smith). He is credited with expanding Parson's plan to upgrade three parts of Interstate 70 to doing the whole thing as one big project. He's served two terms in the Senate and three terms in the House. He was also a Greene County (Springfield) Commissioner. He supposedly earns his living as a cattle farmer. He is widely regarded as a RINO, if not a closet Democrat, by MAGA/Freedom Caucus types. I think most political observers consider him the most likely winner in the primary.

Holly (Thompson) Rehder was elected to the Senate in 2020. She chose to run for Lt. Gov. instead a seeking a second term in the Senate. She previously served four terms in the House. Her big claim to fame is growing up poor. She supposedly lived in like 30 different homes before she was a teenager. She got married at age 15 and had a kid. Her second husband built a business stringing cable TV cable, making her wealthy. She did lobbying for the cable TV industry and launched her political career from there. (She started using her maiden name Thompson after divorcing her second husband two years ago). Throughout her legislative career she has focused on issues related to mental health, drug addiction, human trafficking and sexual abuse. Her big legislative accomplishment was the creation of a prescription drug monitoring system in Missouri. Despite these liberal sounding areas of interests, she professes to be a strong Trump/MAGA supporter and adored Rush Limbaugh (sponsoring legislation to name a day after him).

David Wasinger -- I don't actually know anything about him. Here's his "About" page from his campaign website: https://davidwasinger.com/about/


Secretary of State

With eight candidates in this race it's conceivable almost anyone could end up with a plurality. Still, it seems to me candidates most likely to win the primary are Dean Plocher, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, Denny Hoskins and Shane Schoeller. My sense is that three of these are seeking the secretary of state's office as a stepping stone toward eventually seeking a higher office.

Dean Plocher has spent the past two years as Speaker of the House. Much of that time he was subject to ethics investigations. That said, he's probably the front runner in the race. He's a lawyer from St. Louis County. Good looking guy (no homo) who looks like a politician from central casting. He's also the tallest one in the race, so there's that.

Mary Elizabeth Coleman is a hard-core pro-life advocate and attorney from Arnold. She's half way through her first Senate term so she's not risking anything by running. She previously served in the House. She's widely regarded as a talented politician, but she made a legislative mistake this year that likely doomed her initiative petition reform bill.

Denny Hoskins served eight years in the House and is finishing his eighth year in the Senate. He's a CPA from Warrensburg but his senate district got redrawn so he's spent the past two years representing a district he didn't live in. He was a founding member of the now disbanded Conservative Caucus and now is part of the Freedom Caucus (along with Eigel and Brattin). He's one of the ones who had his committee chairmanship and Capital basement parking spot stripped earlier this year. He is nearly universally blamed for the fact that Missouri doesn't have sports betting.

Shane Schoeller is County Clerk of Greene County and previously served in the House of Representatives. He was a field representative for U.S. Senators John Ashcroft and Kit Bond, worked for the staff of Congressman Roy Blunt and was employed by Matt Blunt when he was Secretary of State. Schoeller previously served as head of the Missouri Republican Party. The St. Louis Post Dispatch endorsed him in the Republican Primary and said he was the only candidate in the race who seemed to understand what the job of secretary of state was about.


ETA: Oh, right. There's also Valentina Gomez. She's the saucy candidate who does provocative videos where she calls everything weak and gay. She doesn't quite rank among great Missouri wacko candidates like Leonard Steinman and Chief Wanna Dubie, but she's working toward it. Can't see her getting elected, though.

Scott Faughn's tipsheet this week handicapped the races a bit and listed fundraising totals:

https://themissouritimes.com/twmp-column-statewide-tipsheet/

OP didn't ask about the attorney general's race, but . . .

Trump’s presence looms large over Missouri’s Republican primary for attorney general

Missouri Firearms Coalition        
 Dean Plocher really deserves an F RATING for what he did to gun owners over the last 8 years in Jeff City, but he's known as 'Dumb Dean' in the Capitol so the D just seemed right to us.
Dean has blocked countless gun bills in the House...he's earned this rating.
See more here: https://www.facebook.com/MissouriFirearmsCoalition/videos/1194236075062297
Sorry don't know how to make link hot.
 I'll be voting anybody but Plocher,guys a real shitbird.

Hotlinking is super easy. It takes longer to explain it that to do it.

When making a post there is a row of buttons at the top of the post editor. This is where you see the icons for bold, italic, underlining, etc. One of those icons (seventh from the left) looks like two links of a chain. Click on that and it will bring up a separate window with two fields. The first field says URL. Post the web address you want to link there (you copy pasted the link to the MFC so you clearly know where to get the URL). The second field says Display text. You don't have to use this field. If you leave it blank viewers will see the URL you've copied into the first field. If you type something in the second field, that's what users will see but clicking the hotlink will still take them to the URL you put in the first field. In short, the only thing you needed to do was click the chain button and drop your URL there. BTW, when typing a response, if you highlight some text and then click the chain icon, the site will populate the Display Text field with what you've highlighted so all you have to do is paste the URL.

Yeah, I'm a little more on top of things when it comes to the AG & Treasurer races.

But if we want to make this a general MO election thread I wouldn't be upset about it.  

Hello from Ohio. The Valentina Gomez videos are hilariously unhinged. I can’t see them enough.   I almost hope she wins just for the lolz.

MissouriNet story on Lincoln Hough

and their profile on Holly Rehder


They haven't posted about Wasinger yet. If they do, I'll edit this post and include a link.

If you can stand a bunch of nonsense banter, Scott Faughn had Republican political consultant David Barklage on his podcast this week to handicap the races. They discuss the Lieutenant Governor candidates at 19:55. Their discussion of the Secretary of State race begins at 27:00, with discussion of Gomez starting around the 30:50 mark.

I'm a bit late to the party...

Holly Rehder sold out MO on the PDMP... which I'm sure has done nothing to stop drug deaths and dependency.

Lincoln Hough voted against MO gun bills.

Dennis Wasinger had the endorsement of Eric Burlison.

Looks like Wasinger got the R nod for Lt.Gov, but it was a very tight race.

Denny Hoskins did well getting the R nod for Sec. Of State.

I confess Wasinger flew under my radar. I guess that's the result of me viewing the election from a narrow window of the state senate. I really thought Hough would have it in a walk.

Hoskins surprised me as well. I thought his history with sports betting would kill his chances. He definitely worked the hardest, though. He earned his victory. Personally, I'm disappointed in the result but the people have spoken.

Perhaps, if we are lucky, the factions will work together to do great things for Missouri.