In Governor's Race, Missouri Republicans Play Name and Blame Games

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Missouri Republicans Play Name and Blame Games: John Ashcroft served two terms as Missouri’s governor before representing the state in the U.S. Senate. After losing his seat in 2000, Ashcroft became attorney general under President George W. Bush.

What does all this have to do with this year’s race for governor? Quite a lot, actually. Ashcroft’s son, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, has enjoyed a polling lead in the GOP primary in large part due to inherited name recognition. “Ashcroft has a great name with his father holding so many offices in the state and then serving as U.S. attorney general,” says Ken Warren, a pollster at St. Louis University. “The Ashcroft name is quite legendary in Missouri, much like the Kennedy name in Massachusetts.”

But name recognition alone may not be enough. What was once a sizable polling lead has dwindled ahead of the Aug. 6 primary, with the race now looking like a dead heat thanks to aggressive campaigning from Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe. Kehoe has enjoyed high-profile endorsements and fundraising, including a $1.25 million donation to a political action committee backing his bid from St. Louis financier Rex Sinquefield. Whoever wins the primary will be heavily favored in the fall to succeed term-limited Gov. Mike Parson in the heavily red state.

In the absence of major policy differences, Ashcroft and Kehoe have been trading personal attacks. Ashcroft, for instance, has tried to brand Kehoe as “Tax Hike Mike” for his past support for tax increases to fund infrastructure. In recent days, Ashcroft has been dealing with an anonymous complaint that he misleads voters by calling himself an engineer when he’s never had a professional license.

The race has mostly been pretty quiet, but it’s bound to grow more heated in the closing weeks. The central question remains, as it’s pretty much been all along, whether Kehoe can overcome the Ashcroft name. “My guess is that Kehoe’s campaign will use the money that they have hoarded to flood the airwaves and mailboxes in the last few weeks to snatch the nomination,” says University of Missouri political scientist Peverill Squire. “But waiting may prove to be a bad decision.”

Ballot Initiatives as Negotiating Tactic: California voters will decide a number of high-profile issues in November, including increased penalties for some crimes, an $18 minimum wage, affirmation of same-sex marriage rights and the ability of local governments to impose rent control. One question they won’t answer is whether to repeal a state law allowing workers to sue their employers.

A decade ago, California created a unique approach to ballot initiatives. Previously, certified initiatives would head inevitably to the ballot. Now, sponsors have the option of withdrawing their initiatives up to 131 days ahead of the election. They do so with increasing frequency. The threat of an initiative considered harmful by legislators and the governor is enough to draw these leaders to the negotiating table.

It’s become a rite of summer in Sacramento. This year, sponsors of five different initiatives withdrew their proposals in light of successful negotiations. The threatened labor law repeal, for example, prompted a compromise that managed to leave both union and business leaders satisfied. “This proposal maintains strong protections for workers, provides incentives for businesses to comply with labor laws and reduces litigation,” said Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Naturally, not all parties walk away happy. The most famous example of successful hostage-taking happened in 2018, when the beverage industry convinced lawmakers to bar local governments from enacting soda taxes for the next dozen years. The industry had spent $7 million collecting signatures for an initiative that would have forced localities to win voter approval for any kind of tax increase. “Legislators didn’t think [this would pass] but knew they’d have to spend tens or maybe $100 million to fight it, and were willing to cut a deal,” says Thad Kousser, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

One of the problems with ballot initiatives is that they’re take-it-or-leave-it deals. Voters can either approve or disapprove measures, without taking into account possible impacts on other programs, as legislators have to do all the time. “The hope was that the people who had the resources to propose an initiative would have an incentive to reach more of a centrist compromise with legislators,” says Kousser, who was an academic adviser to the effort to allow initiative withdrawals.

Theoretically, it’s possible that an interest group could collect enough signatures to try to force legislative action even if it lacks the resources to mount a serious campaign. It’s likely, however, that lawmakers would call that bluff. Instead, it’s the big-money players who are able to force action through the threat of initiatives — if they’re willing to bend a bit themselves. “That’s part of what was envisioned,” Kousser says, “to have legislators and initiative proponents both have an incentive to come to the table, rather than it simply being, whoever can spend the money to qualify a ballot measure gets to have full agenda-setting power.”

The Advantages Governors Offer as Running Mates: President Biden has sought to make it clear that he has no intention of withdrawing as this year’s Democratic nominee, but that hasn’t stopped considerable speculation not only about who might replace him but also who might be selected as that person’s running mate. Assuming the nomination would go in Biden’s absence to Vice President Kamala Harris, a considerable number of media reports settled quickly on the idea that she would probably choose a governor, such as Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Andy Beshear of Kentucky.

Harris may never get to make such a pick, but it’s worth thinking about why prognosticators immediately had governors in mind. One reason is obvious: Given the party’s precarious majority in the U.S. Senate, senators would basically be disqualified this year for fear of losing a seat. And, although Republican Mitt Romney picked Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan back in 2012, House members generally lack the name recognition to garner serious consideration.

But it’s more than the process of elimination that makes governors appealing. For one thing, although recent nominees have mostly stopped considering traditional geographic ticket-balancing concerns, a governor such as Shapiro or Roy Cooper of North Carolina could potentially tip a swing state and help with its neighbors. “A regional pick of a governor makes lots of sense when winning a handful of crucial states is the name of the game,” says Saladin Ambar, who studies governors at Rutgers University.

For years, from Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush, governors dominated the presidential sweepstakes. That’s been less true of late, although lots of governors have run. Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor, served as vice president to Donald Trump before their fallout over 2020 election rigging. Pence’s own presidential bid went nowhere; he dropped out in October. This time around, Trump is considering another also-ran, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

It’s probably a moot point, but it’s understandable why pundits figure Harris would turn to a governor. “Any governor will have some claim to outsider status with respect to Washington,” Ambar says, “and that is something voters continue to desire.”