Missouri State Rep. Sarah Unsicker, D-Shrewsbury announced Thursday afternoon that she was withdrawing from the race for Attorney General, after she said her offfice had forwarded unspecified allegations of foreign election interference to the Missouri Secretary of State's Office. 

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said the office received an allegation, but not proof or evidence, from Unsicker earlier in the day.

In a statement announcing her departure from the race, Unsicker called on her opponent, Elad Gross to exit the race. Gross tells Spectrum News he will stay in the race.

Unsicker has been removed from her legislative committees by Minority Floor Leader Crystal Quade over Unsicker’s social media associations with individuals Quade and others have connected to “conspiracies and racist and anti-Semitic ideologies.”

Unsicker said in a statement Wednesday night that she hoped the information she received was incorrect, but hoped Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft “addresses such information with proper concern.”

“Secretary Ashcroft takes any claim regarding the integrity of Missouri elections very seriously and cautions that unsubstantiated statements made on social media platforms can undermine our Republic by causing distrust in the voting process,” the office said in a statement.

Unsicker said Thursday afternoon she would make an announcement about her political future in January. Due to term limits, she's barred from seeking another term in the Missouri House. 

Gross, who said he's known Unsicker for seven years and has helped her with legislation in the past, added that he's concerned for her, but also believes she should resign her seat in the House. 

"It's terrible for me to think of how we got to this point," he said.

Gannon won’t run in 2024

State Sen. Elaine Gannon, a Republican from De Soto who represents parts of Jefferson, Ste. Genevieve, St. Francois and Washington Counties in Jefferson City, announced Wednesday that she won’t seek a second term in the Senate next year, citing interest in spending more time with her grandchildren. Gannon previously served four terms in the Missouri House from 2012-2020. 

In the 2023 legislative session, Gannon authored a bill signed by Gov. Mike Parson extending Missouri HealthNet coverage to postpartum women for a full year after childbirth, up from 60 days. 

Gannon won a three-way GOP primary in 2020 and was unopposed in the general election. 

John Hewkin, a pharmacist from Cuba, Mo. announced a primary challenge to Gannon in April.

Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem and State Rep. Mike Henderson, R-Desloge, told Spectrum News Wednesday he was considering the race. Henderson was first elected in 2016 and cannot run again in the House due to term limits. Two sources tell Spectrum News that State Rep. Cyndi Buccheit-Courtway, a Festus Republican, could get into the race, with one source calling her the frontrunner. Buccheit-Courtway could not be reached for comment. She was first elected to the Missouri House in 2020.

Hawley endorses Trump

For months, Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has said he expected former President Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee for President in 2024, calling it inevitable, and saying that he’d support Trump in a matchup against President Joe Biden. But when asked, he’s stopped short of phrasing it as an endorsement. 

That changed this week. 

On Sunday, former President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform that it was “interesting” Democrats were investing in the senate races in Missouri and Texas, where Hawley and Ted Cruz are running for reelection next year, respectively.

“Josh and Ted must be very careful, stranger things have happened!” the 2024 GOP presidential primary frontrunner wrote of the two men who had yet to endorse his own reelection bid.

By Tuesday, Hawley had offered his endorsement publicly, telling Politico “President Trump doesn’t need to worry. I’m with him.”

“It's no change of position for me. My position has been for, gosh, maybe more than a year now that President Trump, former President Trump, is the only person who's going to win this primary,” Hawley told Spectrum News in an interview on Wednesday. “You can attach whatever word you want to that: support, endorse, stand with, you know, it doesn't matter to me. Whatever.”

Hawley dismissed any notion that he made the endorsement in response to Trump’s social media post.

“I've talked to him about this, you know. He's called and asked me to support him, not just recently, but months and months ago, and he and I've talked directly and I've said listen, ‘I'm with you,’” Hawley said. “So I stand with him. He doesn’t need to worry about it.”

Lucas Kunce, a Democrat vying in the party’s primary to face Hawley next November, got an endorsement from former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, who narrowly lost a 2016 Senate bid against Roy Blunt. In an Op-Ed for the Kansas City Star, Kander referred to Trump’s social media post and said Missouri’s seat could be a pickup for Democrats, replacing the likely loss of the party’s seat in West Virginia with Sen. Joe Manchin opting against re-election.

Kunce and State Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis, are the declared candidates in the Democratic primary.

Endorsements in a handful of other high-profile political races have been doled out like holiday presents in recent days.

Congress

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who dropped out of the Senate race to challenge U.S. Rep. Cori Bush for the first congressional district seat, this week got the backing of the Missouri-Kansas Laborers’ District Council, Sheet Metal Workers SMART Local Union 36 and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 655.

Some labor organizations have criticized Bush’s vote against the 2021 infrastructure bill. Bush has said she voted against it because she wanted votes on other elements of the Biden administration’s agenda first. 

But Bush figures to get some labor backing. She was a vocal supporter of UAW workers on strike at the GM assembly plant in Wentzville and on Thursday joined UAW leaders, along with American Postal Workers and United Electrical Workers union members on Capitol Hill, calling for a ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war.

UAW President Shawn Fain called Bush and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. “a couple of the most bad-ass representatives in Congress.”

Jake Hummel, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO tells Spectrum News the organization’s board will hold off on endorsing in the contest until after filing for the August primary closes March 26.

Will there be more candidates to choose from?

Missouri State Sen. Brian Williams, D-University City, on Tuesday again deflected questions about his potential interest in the race, after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a $278 million project to improve I-270 in North St. Louis County, where Williams reminded an audience of community leaders and fellow politicians of the roughly $115 million he’s helped secure for a variety of projects in the region, including this one.

“I lead with my record. If I decided to move forward with another office, I’ll lead again with my accomplishments and leave that up to voters to make that decision, but right now I want to stay focused on this project.”

Among those assembled for the event was Bell, a former Ferguson City Council member who talked up the benefits of bipartisan cooperation to move forward with a project that lead to jobs and safer highways. He demurred on the potential for company in the primary.

“We’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about North County getting the resources needed here in North County and I think that requires all of us coming together and that means our state elected officials, our local leaders but also our community stakeholders. That’s how we’re going to move this region forward together,” Bell said.

Across the river in the Metro East, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill.,  took the relatively rare step Saturday of endorsing an opponent of a sitting fellow Representative when she backed Darren Bailey’s 12th district primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., calling Bailey “MAGA to his core.”

As recently as a few weeks ago, Bost sounded like he expected Miller to stay on the sidelines, although the move wasn’t entirely unexpected. When Miller was forced into a member-member primary against Rep. Rodney Davis in 2022 due to redistricting, Bost endorsed Davis. Miller and Bailey have been linked politically since a June 2022 rally outside Quincy when former President Donald Trump endorsed Bailey’s bid for governor at an event to boost Miller.

On Monday, Bost countered with an endorsement from House Speaker Mike Johnson, which followed endorsements from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who nearly became Speaker after McCarthy was forced out. 

Bailey has built his rationale for running around the idea that Bost has become a “career politician” out of touch with a district that Bailey says is more conservative then Bost is. Johnson’s statement of support took direct aim at the idea.

“He’s earned the trust of his colleagues and constituents because he fights for our conservative values each and every day. Mike has never forgotten where he came from or what he believes; that’s why we need him in Congress”

Lt. Governor

Former State Sen. Bob Onder, R-St. Charles County, marked the public launch of his campaign for Lt. Governor Monday in a series of campaign stops around the state, starting in St. Louis County and later in Jefferson City, where he picked up an endorsement from Missouri Right To Life.

Onder is in a primary field that includes House Speaker Dean Plocher, State Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, Franklin County Clerk Tim Baker, and former congressional and St. Louis County Executive candidate Paul Berry III.

At his St. Louis County event in Richmond Heights, Onder criticized Senate leadership for restoring funding for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and for Missouri libraries that was stripped out of the budget in the House last year as the Missouri Library Association fought a new state law that bans certain materials. 

Onder specifically called out Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, and President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden by their titles, if not their names, over the decision to restore the funding. Hough has publicly said he was still considering joining the lieutenant governor’s race. 

“I think it’s fair to say that my decision to run or not will in no way be effected by the paranoia of former Senator Onder,” Hough told Spectrum News in a text message. 

State Rep. Adam Schnelting, R-St. Charles, and State Rep. Tony Lovasco, R-O’Fallon, were among those in attendance at Onder’s Monday launch in Richmond Heights, and both said they were backing Onder’s bid. 

In the Democratic primary, State Rep. Richard Brown, D-Kansas City and Anastasia Syes of the St. Louis area are declared candidates.