Former President Donald Trump is endorsing “Eric” in a race for Missouri’s open Senate seat that features two top candidates with that first name.
The message from Trump’s Save America PAC on Monday, which does not specify whether Trump actually supports state Attorney General Eric Schmitt or scandal-ridden former Gov. Eric Greitens, comes just one day before Republican voters are set to head to the polls in the Show Me State.
“There is a BIG Election in the Great State of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border,” Trump said. “We need a person who will not back down to the Radical Left Lunatics who are destroying our Country. I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Trump’s decision to back “Eric” over a slate of prominent rivals who had sought his endorsement for the GOP nomination, including Rep. Vicky Hartzler and Rep. Billy Long, comes as the attorney general has been pulling ahead in recent polls.
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National Republicans had long been concerned that the former president would announce his support for Greitens, whom they see as the only candidate that could lose the Senate seat for the GOP in a state that Trump carried with over 56% of the vote in 2020. But the prospect of a Greitens endorsement seemed less likely as the disgraced ex-governor’s opponents pummeled him with negative ads and his once-commanding polling edge withered away.
In a post on his social media site, Truth Social, last month, Trump ruled out endorsing Hartzler, saying she didn’t have “what it takes,” while praising Greitens in an interview with the hard-right One America News Network as “tough” and “smart.” Still, Trump acknowledged in the same interview that Greitens was the candidate Democrats “legitimately want to run against,” describing him as “controversial” but adding that he has “endorsed controversial people before.”
The former governor and ex-Navy SEAL is highly controversial due to allegations of domestic and sexual abuse that have been leveled against him by various women, including his former wife and a hairstylist whom he had an affair with. Greitens has been accused of taking nonconsensual, sexually explicit photos of women and attempting to coerce them into performing sex acts on him, as well as physically abusing his wife and son.
A Republican-led investigative committee in the Missouri General Assembly found the woman who accused Greitens of sexual abuse “overall credible” in an April 2018 report, prompting the governor to resign from office amid mounting threats of impeachment. After Greitens’s now ex-wife filed an affidavit alleging physical abuse in March, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who is backing Hartzler, called on him to drop out of the Senate race and said he “belongs in handcuffs.” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), whose decision to forgo a run for reelection opened the seat, said the accusations against Greitens were disqualifying, and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called them “pretty disturbing.”
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Greitens has sought to position himself as the most outwardly pro-Trump candidate in the race, frequently assailing “RINOs,” or ‘Republicans in name only,” and pledging to oppose Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) as the Senate’s top Republican.
Republican and Democratic primaries for Missouri’s Senate seat are set to take place Tuesday. Schmitt holds a clear edge over Greitens, and while Trump’s late endorsement might serve to provide a last-minute boost to the former governor’s struggling campaign, Schmitt remains the favorite to win the GOP nod.
Along with the eventual Democratic nominee, the GOP’s pick is set to face independent candidate John Wood, a former House Jan. 6 committee investigator who has staked out a centrist position and is backed by former GOP Sen. Jack Danforth. While Wood’s chances of winning the race are slim, his candidacy could have an outsize impact if Greitens becomes the Republican nominee.
Despite Trump’s equivocation in endorsing a Missouri Republican Senate candidate, both Erics tried to claim credit.
“I’m grateful for President Trump’s endorsement,” Eric Schmitt said in a campaign statement. “As the only America First candidate who has actually fought for election integrity, border security & against the Left’s indoctrination of our kids—I’ll take that fight to the Senate to SAVE AMERICA!”
Eric Greitens, meanwhile, simply issued a campaign statement saying, “BREAKING: President Donald J. Trump Endorsed Governor Eric Greitens for Missouri’s U.S. Senate Seat.”
