Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley has faced renewed scorn for his behavior on Jan. 6 from a Democrat who announced a bid to challenge him on the second anniversary of the riots.
On Friday, U.S. Army veteran Lucas Kunce became the first person to publicly announce a bid against Hawley in 2024, calling his prospective Republican opponent a “fraud and a coward” in a video announcing his bid.
In the video, Hawley—the first-term congressman who famously raised his fist in solidarity with Jan. 6 protestors ahead of the riots—is depicted on Congressional security cameras “running for his life” from the mob.
But Kunce goes deeper, mocking Hawley for his upcoming book on manhood, his votes against legislation benefitting veterans, and for his nepotistic upbringing as the son of a banker who attended an elite prep school several miles from his home.
“Missourians deserve a U.S. Senator who’s willing to stand and fight,” Kunce said. “That’s why I’ve decided to take him on.”
On January 6, 2021, Josh Hawley showed us he’s a fraud and a coward.
Missourians deserve a U.S. Senator who’s willing to stand and fight. That’s why I’ve decided to take him on. pic.twitter.com/VbN1SuqPFU
— Lucas Kunce (@LucasKunceMO) January 6, 2023
Newsweek has reached out to Hawley’s campaign for comment.
Whether Kunce will actually be successful in his bid is questionable—particularly in a state that has remained solidly conservative since the controversial Hawley’s ouster of Democrat Claire McKaskill by roughly six points in the 2018 election cycle.
Though Hawley has proven divisive nationally for his role in the Jan. 6 riots, Missouri’s political history is on his side.
While Democratic presidential candidates have had some success there—Barack Obama came within a quarter-of-a-percentage point of winning the state in 2008—Missourians have not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton.
And though Democrats have had substantial success in the governor’s mansion (since the Reagan years, four Democrats have occupied the governor’s mansion), Missouri voters have not consistently sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in several generations, with the state trending redder and redder in the ensuing decades. Former President Donald Trump notably carried the state by 15 points in the 2020 election, while statewide Democrats have recently fared quite poorly.
It’s also difficult to say whether Kunce is the ideal candidate to take Hawley on. Last summer, Kunce—who ran a populist campaign focused on midwestern revitalization and a rejection of progressive and establishment talking points—ultimately lost in Missouri’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary to eventual nominee Judy Busch Valentine by double-digits.
She would then go on to lose by 15 points to Republican incumbent Eric Schmitt in the general in a similar result to Trump’s 2020 margin over Biden.
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