ST. LOUIS—Missouri’s Aug. 6 primary is less than two months away. Candidates are making the rounds at county-level political events, holding their kickoff events and launching bus tours. 

What voters haven’t seen, by and large, are debates, despite nearly every statewide office being up for grabs.

Candidates in the eight-way GOP primary for secretary of state have appeared at various county party events, like last weekend’s Lincoln-Reagan-Trump day at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds in Troy, where five of them gave remarks.

In the race for attorney general, the candidates aren’t waiting for a general election to make joint appearances, sharing audiences in Springfield and at Saint Louis University, and later this month, at a Federalist Society event in St. Louis. Democrat Elad Gross and Republicans Andrew Bailey and Will Scharf all appeared at a Springfield event, while Gross and Scharf were at the SLU gathering. It’s unclear if all three will attend the Federalist Society forum.

Gross is running unopposed, while the PACs supporting Bailey and Scharf have already been on the air with ads.

“Especially with that primary and how hot that one is right now I think they want to have those discussions between eachother,” Gross said. “I think there should be debates for every single office that we have and then folks should be able to tune in.”

That also applies to the most heated Democratic primary contest involving U.S. Rep. Cori Bush’s bid for re-election against St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell and former State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal. 

Bush has been non-committal about agreeing to one. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to an updated inquiry Friday.

“We have sent messages by email. We’ve sent messages by phone call, text, certified mail for debates. We’ll send carrier pigeon messages if we need to. We’ve made it clear we think we should not only do one debate, we should do several debates,” Bell told Spectrum News last week. “If you’re going to talk about positions, misconstrued positions, let’s sit down and have those conversations where you gotta answer questions and I’ll answer questions and so far, the congresswoman hasn’t been willing to agree to that.”

Chappelle-Nadal said she looked forward to a debate.

Real debates in high-profile primary races and general election contests in Missouri have become less frequent in recent years. In the 2022 race for the U.S.Senate,, then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt held off on GOP debates that didn’t feature former Gov. Eric Greitens, and Trudy Busch Valentine and Lucas Kunce didn’t hold a Democratic primary debate. Schmitt then skipped a general election forum.

The Post Dispatch reported Friday that secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and State Sen. Bill Eigel, two of the three main GOP candidates for governor, are accusing the third, Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe, of dodging debates.

They each participated at a February forum at a state party meeting in Kansas City but have not shared a debate stage since.

“We’ve had a couple TV stations asking us to do it. We’re willing to do it, we just got to get the details worked out so I anticipate yes,” Kehoe told Spectrum News Friday morning. “We’re willing to do it.”

Speaking of debates, Schmitt is reportedly helping former President Donald Trump in preparations for Trump’s first debate June 27 against President Joe Biden. The New York Times reported Friday that Schmitt and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, reportedly under consideration to be Trump’s Vice-Presidential nominee, met with Trump Thursday, according to sources familiar with the session.


Missouri vs. Feds over radiation

Efforts to get the federal government take financial responsibility for the medical costs incurred by residents of the St. Louis area who may have been sickened by nuclear radiation, as well as continued pushes to hasten the cleanup of the Coldwater Creek floodplain have been bipartisan at the local, state and federal level. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, and Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat, have each sponsored legislation on the issues. 

Press conferences and other meetings over the past year have featured Republican and Democrats in the General Assembly, from North St. Louis County to St. Charles County, as well as gubernatorial candidates like Ashcroft and Eigel.

This week, Ashcroft and Scharf appeared at a news conference in Florissant ahead of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers meeting about Coldwater Creek cleanup. Ashcroft was critical of informational signs developed by the federal government that he and residents in the area say don’t adequately warn the public about the dangers posed by contaminated soil in the area.

A few hours later, the Army Corps of Engineers said it would review the signage and see if changes are warranted.

On Monday, Ashcroft plans to put up his own signage. He’s called a news conference at the Department of Energy’s Weldon Spring containment site, which is the former uranium materials plant next to Francis Howell High School.

“These signs designed to protect Missouri’s kids will continue to be installed until the federal government finally decides to do its job. This failure to act ends now,” Ashcroft said in a statement.

“I live a mile from that site, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer despite having zero instance of breast cancer in her family tree. As governor, I will do everything in my power to right these wrongs committed by the federal government. It’s personal for me,” Eigel told Spectrum News Friday. 

“The magnitude of the problem, the cost of the problem is significant and the federal government needs to step in,” Kehoe said, during a Friday campaign stop in Chesterfield. “We’ve gotta continue as a state to work with our federal delegation to make sure that the people in DC understand this is not a problem the residents here in St. Charles or in St. Louis caused. We need to make sure that we get this figured out.”

Endorsement news

  • A key labor organization is staying out of the first congressional district race. Spectrum News has learned that the board of the Missouri AFL-CIO will announce its slate of candidate endorsements early next week but will leave the Bush/Bell/Chappelle-Nadal contest open. 

  • St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones has yet to announce her endorsement in the race contest. A spokesperson for her political operation did not immediately respond to a question Friday asking if she still plans to do so. 

  • Former State Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, has received Missouri Right to Life’s endorsement in the race for the third congressional district. Onder had the organization’s backing when he first announced a bid for lieutenant governor before switching to the other contest. The group is now backing David Wasinger in the lieutenant governor’s race.