Toronto, Canada – June 22, 2022; Eric Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Futures, on Center Stage during day two of Collision 2022 at the Enercare Center in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile by Collision via Getty Images)
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Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former governor of Missouri who launched a comeback bid against the wishes of many Republicans, will lose the state’s GOP Senate primary, NBC News projects.
Eric Schmitt, currently the state’s attorney general, is expected to move on to the general election, where he will compete with a Democratic candidate for the seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.
The primary results mark a landslide defeat for Greitens, who fully embraced former President Donald Trump and battled recent allegations of domestic abuse as he sought to return to the political spotlight.
Greitens had announced his Senate bid nearly three years after resigning from the governor’s office amid allegations that he blackmailed a hairdresser with whom he had an affair. Greitens admitted to the date, but denied that he had threatened to publish nude photographs he took of her if she revealed the relationship.
He was charged with felony invasion of privacy related to the alleged blackmail. Greitens was also accused of illegally using a list of charitable donors to help fund his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. Both charges were dropped when Greitens resigned in June 2018.
Missouri Governor Eric Greitens pictured at the Robin Hood Veterans Summit in New York City.
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Those and other scandals led top Republicans to worry that a Greitens bid would jeopardize the party’s hold on a Senate seat in a state that otherwise reliably votes Republican for high office . Democrats are desperate to hold on to their razor-thin majority in the Senate, but their control of the chamber is threatened by a challenging political environment, exacerbated by President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and recent economic turmoil.
Greitens had fully aligned himself with Trump during his Senate campaign, including echoing Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud tainting the 2020 presidential election. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., joined Greitens’ campaign as national co-chair.
But the former president ultimately did not give Greitens a full endorsement. Rather, he oddly endorsed “Eric” in the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where two of the leading candidates are named Eric.
“I trust the great people of Missouri, in this case, to make up their own minds,” Trump said in a social media post on the eve of the primary.
Both Greitens and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt touted Trump’s announcement as a personal endorsement.
RealClearPolitics polling averages showed Greitens with a smaller lead over a Democratic primary candidate than either of his two biggest competitors in the Republican primary.
After Sheena Greitens filed court documents in March alleging that Eric Greitens abused her and their young son while they were married, numerous Republicans called on Greitens to step down.
“If you hit a woman or a child, you belong in handcuffs, not in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who had investigated Greitens when he was Missouri’s attorney general.
Blunt himself said Greitens “should not be running for Senate” if Sheena Greitens’ allegations are true.