Josh Hawley defeats Lucas Kunce in Missouri U.S. Senate race

OZARK — U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley won a second term on Tuesday, cruising to victory over a well-financed rival in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2018. 

Hawley led Marine veteran Lucas Kunce 52% to 45% when the Associated Press called the race at 9:30 p.m.

“They said they were going to turn Missouri blue,” Hawley told supporters Tuesday night. “They said they would invest whatever it took to beat us. They said they were going to make an example of the State of Missouri. Well, tonight we made an example of them.”

A former U.S. Supreme Court clerk and law professor at the University of Missouri, Hawley briefly served as the state’s attorney general before jumping into the 2018 U.S. Senate race against incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill. He survived a national Democratic wave that year and defeated McCaskill by six percentage points.  

Since joining the Senate, Hawley has struck a more populist tone, abandoning previous opposition to anti-union “right-to-work” laws and minimum wage hikes. He also championed an unsuccessful push to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover individuals exposed to nuclear material left over from atomic bomb development in St. Louis. 

It was his support for the RECA expansion that impressed Debbie Hedgepeth, who is retired and lives in Rolla. She said she supports Hawley because of “what he does for Missouri” and all he believes in.

“He is a man of faith,” she said, “and he’s done a lot for St. Louis, as far as the bill to clean the (nuclear) waste.”

Sam Coryell, who lives in Springfield, works in commercial real estate and said she attends the same church as the Hawleys when they are in Missouri, said Hawley “does a great job in the Senate of holding our leaders, both Republican and Democrat, accountable.”

Hawley was criticized in 2021 for expressing support for Jan. 6 rioters shortly before they stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. He was later captured on video running through the Capitol to escape the mob.

He has defended his decision to object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election, despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing that would have impacted the outcome of that race. 

In his campaign for re-election, Hawley worked to paint Kunce as an extremist, highlighting the Democrat’s support for transgender rights and slamming his call for the country to transition off of fossil fuels. 

Hawley also openly mocked Kunce after a reporter was injured by a bullet fragment at one of his shooting-range campaign events, releasing a television ad saying Kunce “can’t shoot straight” and calling him a “reckless liberal.”

In turn, Kunce hammered Hawley as an out-of-touch plutocrat, pointing out that Hawley’s campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private plane flights across the state after attacking McCaskill for the same thing in 2018. 

Hawley also caught flak for reports that he only rarely visited Missouri during his six years in the Senate. 

In a concession speech to supporters at a union hall in Kansas City, Kunce said that while enthusiasm for his campaign was high, the system was stacked against him.

“You gotta organize,” Kunce said. “You know, the reason we’re in a union hall tonight is because the labor coalition we build is built around everyday people trying to take power back for themselves. That’s what this campaign is about. That’s what organized labor is about, and that’s what America should be about, is everyday people having power”

In the end, despite being outraised by Kunce, Hawley emerged victorious. 

“What Missouri has said is loud and clear,” Hawley said in his victory speech. “Missouri has said we believe in this country, that God is not done with America yet and we are here to fight for America’s future.”

The Independent’s Annelise Hanshaw contributed to this story from Kansas City.