FENTON, Mo–Ten days after Katherine Pinner, who won the Republican party’s Aug. 2 primary for St. Louis County Executive but later withdrew from the race, GOP leaders voted Monday night to move forward with Mark Mantovani as the party’s choice to take on incumbent Sam Page in November.

Mantovani, who unsuccessfully ran twice for St. Louis County Executive as a Democrat, was one of five candidates who submitted resumes as candidates for consideration. Three of the five candidates showed up Monday night for a meeting at the party's headquarters in Fenton.  Ricky Joiner, a 2022 GOP Senate candidate and Ben Murphy, a former County Executive candidate from the 1990s were the other two. The three were all nominated and then the Republican St. Louis County Central Committee voted for Mantovani as its candidate. 

Pinner stunned the local political scene when she defeated State Rep. Shamed Dogan with more than 56 % of the vote as a political unknown even to party leaders and elected officials. Pinner didn’t raise or spend any money in the primary campaign, and pledged to run a similar general election campaign.

That approach rankled some of the rank and file in the party during a meeting of the St. Louis County Young Republicans on Aug. 25, who were critical of what they interpreted to be a secretive, close-to-the-vest approach. She also declined in that meeting to answer questions about a job discrimination lawsuit filed last month after her requests for a religious exemption to COVID-19 policies were denied.

That night, Artman said Pinner called and told her she had “crashed and burned” at the event, and was ready to quit. Artman told her to sleep on the decision, and by Aug. 30, Pinner publicly recommitted to the race. But on September 2, she obtained a court order to have her name removed from the ballot.

After Monday night's vote was announced, Mantovani saod he switched parties "recently" but wouldn't disclose if he'd voted in the Republican primary. He said there was mutual interest with the Republican Party in having him pursue the GOP nod, and that as late as Saturday, he'd told Dogan that he would stand down if Dogan wanted to re-engage in the race.

Dogan declined.

"I've always had a lot of Republican support, as well as Democrat support. I hope my friends in the Democratic party know that I'm not abandoning them, I'm the same guy, I have the same views I have the same opinions that I always have and I look forward to building this coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats," Mantovani said. 

Dogan, who was in the audience Monday night, supported the decision, saying he'd moved out of "candidate" mode and was into job search mode, as his time in the General Assembly comes to a close after the special session that starts Wednesday.

"We need someone who's going to be able to reach across the aisle and be a competent leader and that's exactly who Mark is," Dogan said.

“Over the next two months, the campaigns will make clear the real differences in temperament between the candidates and in protecting the reproductive health of County residents and in supporting organized labor," a spokesman for the Page campaign said in a statement Monday.