JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe won the Missouri governor’s race Tuesday, defeating Democratic challenger Crystal Quade to maintain the GOP’s grip on the state’s government.

Kehoe will succeed GOP Gov. Mike Parson, who chose him to be his second-in-command in 2018. Parson was barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

Kehoe thanked Parson and Missouri first lady Teresa Parson, who both attended his Jefferson City watch party, before giving an at-times emotional acceptance speech in which he pledged a running start once he is sworn in.

“As soon as my hand comes off the Bible, the Kehoe administration will be relentless in our efforts to make Missouri safer,” Kehoe said in prepared remarks provided to reporters. “We will ensure that Missouri is a state where it is easier to be a cop than a criminal, and we will not rest until the criminals who make our streets and our neighborhoods dangerous are held accountable.”

Kehoe has pledged a day one plan to address crime, and has supported returning oversight of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to a state-appointed board. The issue will likely return to the GOP-controlled General Assembly in 2025. Lawmakers nearly passed an omnibus public safety bill that would have done it in 2023 but shelved the plan, which would have allowed for the appointment of a special prosecutor for violent crime in St. Louis. Kim Gardner, the now-former St. Louis Circuit Attorney, resigned her post under that legislative pressure and removal proceedings started by Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

Since then, St. Louis officials have touted year-to-year reductions in homicides, crimes against persons and property and other metrics.

Despite pay raises within the past year, critics say the department is still at least 300 officers below its budgeted strength, and that the perception of crime in St. Louis is still a problem.

“If you want companies to choose St. Louis to relocate or grow, then they're going to look at what is the perception because they need to recruit employees so if they want their employees to relocate with them, the employees need to believe that St. Louis is a place that they can thrive with their families and grow and right now we don't really have that reputation,” said St. Charles County Councilman Mike Elam, a candidate for County Executive in 2026 who helped emcee Kehoe’s victory party.

Quade, the outgoing state House Democratic minority leader, said in a statement that she had called Kehoe to congratulate him. She told supporters that “all hope is not lost” and expressed optimism that an abortion-rights amendment on the ballot Tuesday could still pass — which it later did.

“I promise you, we will keep fighting,” Quade told a watch party in her hometown of Springfield.

Kehoe had been heavily favored to win. Republicans control Missouri’s state House and state Senate, and no Democrats serve in any statewide office. The last Democrat to serve in statewide office was former Auditor Nicole Galloway, who had been appointed to the position in 2015 and won reelection in 2020. She left office in 2023.

The last Democratic governor was Jay Nixon, who served two terms but was barred by term limits from seeking a third in 2016.

Quade and other Democrats had hoped to gain ground in Missouri this year as voters also weighed in on the constitutional amendment to restore abortion rights to the state, which banned almost all abortions in 2022.

Kehoe opposed the amendment and during a September debate said it would go too far. But he has also said he is open to amending the state’s law banning abortions to allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest.

Interestingly, voters on Tuesday went for both the abortion-rights amendment and Kehoe.

Missouri Democrats during the campaign had zeroed in on Kehoe’s position on who won the 2020 election in the final weeks of the gubernatorial race. Kehoe’s campaign this summer told CNN that Democratic President Joe Biden has “no business being president” and “is illegitimate in the eyes of the voters, of his party, and of the world.”

That stands in contrast to what Kehoe had said shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Days afterward, Kehoe told the Kansas City Star that “the time now is for people to accept the results and move forward.”

Kehoe defeated early favorite Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and State Sen. Bill Eigel during this year’s expensive GOP primary.

He framed himself as the law-and-order candidate, campaigned on securing the southern border and touted his modest upbringing with five siblings and single mother in St. Louis.

Kehoe, 62, ascended from president pro tem of the state Senate to lieutenant governor in 2018, when Parson became the state’s chief executive after former Gov. Eric Greitens resigned following a sex scandal. Voters first elected Kehoe to the state Senate to represent his Jefferson City-area district in 2010. Before that, he worked as a car dealer.

Kehoe did not speak with reporters after his victory speech Tuesday night. He plans a Wednesday afternoon news conference to announce who will lead his transition team.

“When you sit in that seat you gotta be ready on day one…he'll be ready, he'll be ready, we'll be there to help, whatever he needs,” Parson told Spectrum News.

That help could be more than just with a transition. As recently as Monday, Missouri U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt has declined to say categorically that he plans to serve the remainder of his term. His name has been floated as a potential candidate for Attorney General in a second Trump administration. Over the past few months as he’s grown closer to the Trump campaign, joining the candidate in battleground states, most recently last weekend. Schmitt says the AG speculation hasn't come from him and he didn’t want it to serve as a distraction.

If Schmitt were to leave, Kehoe would appoint a replacement. Would Parson want the job?

“I think it would be a conversation we would have with me and the governor-to-be… if that opportunity would come, which would be a great opportunity for Senator Schmitt and it would be a great opportunity for our state,” Parson said.