Eric Schmitt leads Trudy Busch Valentine in U.S. Senate race, Missouri poll finds

Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt holds a substantial lead over Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine in the early weeks of the race for U.S. Senate in Missouri this November, a poll released Friday found.

Schmitt leads Busch Valentine by a margin of 11 percentage points, 49% to her 38%, according to a survey conducted by Saint Louis University and YouGov. The poll is the first since the Aug. 2 primary elections to ask voters which nominee they prefer to succeed U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who is retiring.

The poll, which was funded primarily by Saint Louis University's nonpartisan PRiME Center, surveyed a representative sample of 900 Missouri voters from Aug. 8 to Aug. 16. The margin of error for the full sample of the poll is 3.75 percentage points.

When asked "if the election for U.S. Senator in Missouri were being held today, who would you vote for?" 5% of those surveyed said "other," and 8% said "not sure."

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Schmitt, a former St. Louis state senator and state treasurer who has served as attorney general since 2018, emerged victorious from a competitive Republican primary with a campaign defined by frequent litigation against political opponents and targets, including local school districts and the White House. He is considered the favorite to win in November over Busch Valentine in a state that has increasingly favored Republicans in statewide races in recent years. The heiress to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, registered nurse and philanthropist beat U.S. Marine Lucas Kunce to secure the Democratic nomination.

The poll comes days after independent candidate John Wood dropped out of the race, citing the defeat of former Gov. Eric Greitens in the Republican primary.

Wood, a former investigator with the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, received 10 percent support in the poll when added as a third option. Schmitt received 44% in that match up, a 5-point decline from his head-to-head outcome with Busch Valentine; Busch Valentine received 31%, an 8-point drop. Of those polled, 3% said they would vote for "other" candidates and 13% percent said they were "not sure."

"I still am fairly confident we can say Schmitt has this race well in hand, probably with or without Wood," said Steven Rogers, an associate professor of political science at Saint Louis University and the director of the poll.

Schmitt earned the support of 92% of respondents who identified as Republicans, while Busch Valentine earned 88% of Democratic support in the poll. Independents supported Schmitt over Valentine, 44 percent to 33 percent.

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Missouri voters' approval of Biden, Blunt, Hawley, Supreme Court

The SLU/YouGov poll also asked Missourians how they feel about their U.S. Senators and prominent government leaders in Washington.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, set to become Missouri's senior senator this January, earned 46% overall approval in the poll, 24% of whom said they "strongly approve" of the way he is doing his job. Of the 44% who said they disapproved of the way he was doing his job, 35% said they "strongly disapprove." Meanwhile, 10% of respondents answered "not sure."

Respondents were less approving of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who is retiring after 12 years in the Senate, with 35% saying they approved of the job he was doing (6% strongly approve) and 56% saying they disapproved (27% strongly disapprove).

Rogers said the gap in approval between the two could be due in part to their support of former President Donald Trump, who earned almost 57% of the vote in Missouri in 2020 and remains the frontrunner for the party's presidential nomination in 2024, if he chooses to run again.

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"(Blunt) has been more supportive of Trump than say, Valentine will be, but he has not been probably to the extent or as extreme as Hawley has been," Rogers said. "In that, I think we can probably attribute a little bit of the difference between the two."

Congress as a whole saw lower approval among respondents in the poll than either of the individual senators; 72% percent of respondents overall said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing, with 33% saying they "strongly disapprove." Just 2% of those surveyed said they "strongly approve" of the current Congress.

Almost half of voters said they "strongly disapprove" of the performance of President Joe Biden, who earned a bit more than 41% of Missouri's votes in 2020. Overall, 36% of respondents approved of Biden's job performance; 12% said they "strongly approve." Just 2% said they were "not sure."

The U.S. Supreme Court earned approval from 45% of Missourians, 9% of whom say they "strongly approve." Of the 51% who disapprove of the high court, 30% say they "strongly disapprove."

The 900-voter sample was split for questions of job approval for Congress and the Supreme Court; both questions had a 453-voter sample size with margins of error of 5.83%.

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Galen Bacharier covers Missouri politics & government for the News-Leader. Contact him at gbacharier@news-leader.com, (573) 219-7440 or on Twitter @galenbacharier.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Schmitt leads Busch Valentine in 2022 Missouri Senate race, poll says