Missouri’s top election official Jay Ashcroft launches Republican campaign for governor

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft launched a campaign for governor Thursday, promising to make Missouri “the front line of freedom” and becoming only the second major Republican to enter the race.

While Ashcroft’s candidacy was widely anticipated, his entry kicks off a season of expected campaign announcements. Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe entered the race more than a year ago. Ashcroft is poised to run a campaign focused on appealing to his conservative base.

Ashcroft, 49, was first elected Missouri secretary of state in 2016, and reelected in 2020. He holds a prominent name in Missouri politics as the son of John Ashcroft, a former Missouri governor, U.S. senator and attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Ashcroft nodded at those connections in announcing his campaign, saying in a launch video that his family “has a tradition of faith and service.” The video includes numerous shots of Ashcroft and Jefferson City, as well as footage of work and life scenes, like a mechanic’s shop and a family sitting around a kitchen table.

The video includes a subtle attack on Kehoe, showing footage of the lieutenant governor while Ashcroft says “politicians and lobbyists in Jefferson City slap each other on the back while they give our tax dollars to global corporations, sell out farmland to China and raise gas taxes on hardworking Missourians.”

“The people of Missouri are willing to fight to protect our way of life and you deserve a governor willing to join you,” Ashcroft says in the video. “I will never back down. I will get the job done.”

Ashcroft’s campaign for governor comes after he opted out of the crowded primary for U.S. Senate in 2022.

Ashcroft has taken steps over the past year to raise his profile among conservatives. Last fall, he submitted a controversial rule that would threaten state aid to public libraries if they make “age-inappropriate materials” available to minors. The proposal builds upon months of attempts by conservatives across the state to ban a subset of children’s books, most of which have LGBTQ characters or include themes about race.

Ashcroft and Kehoe are expected to face off against state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican who has been publicly exploring a campaign. Eigel is aligned with a group of hard-right senators in the state Senate and has sponsored legislation that would eliminate the state’s personal property tax and another that would ban public money from going to Planned Parenthood.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who assumed office in 2018 after the resignation of Gov. Eric Greitens, is unable to run again because of term limits.

In January, Ashcroft’s campaign committee reported having nearly $579,000 cash on hand heading into the 2024 election cycle. The pro-Ashcroft PAC Committee for Liberty in January reported having $1.3 million cash on hand.

Missouri has become an increasingly Republican-dominated state in recent years. No major Democrats have yet entered the race. The 2020 Democratic nominee, former State Auditor Nicole Galloway, lost to Parson, 57% to 41%.

Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat, said in a statement Thursday that Ashcroft “feels holding office is his birthright based on his father’s accomplishments instead of a sacred duty to serve the citizens of Missouri.”

“Missourians deserve a governor who is dedicated to them, not an extremist who thinks he’s entitled to the People’s Mansion because of his last name,” she said.

Quade confirmed to The Star Thursday that she is also weighing a run for governor as a Democrat.

“I think everyone’s considering a run for governor,” Quade said. “Absolutely, I am considering it.”

Ashcroft jumped into the controversy over the “independent legislature theory” case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which could give state legislatures sweeping power over elections for Congress and the presidency. Ashcroft submitted an amicus brief to the court and traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the court’s oral arguments.

And Ashcroft earlier this year pulled Missouri out of Electronic Information Registration Information Center, commonly called ERIC, a nonprofit organization formed in 2012 that analyzes voter registration, motor vehicle department and other data to help maintain accurate data rolls and eliminate duplicate registrations.

Some Republican election officials have recently grown suspicious of the organization amid election conspiracies fueled by former President Donald Trump and his supporters.

Ashcroft is currently facing a lawsuit from a Columbia man who accuses the Republican secretary of state of illegally blocking a proposed citizen-driven ballot question that would have prevented lawmakers from making it harder for voters to amend the state constitution. Ashcroft’s office had not filed an answer to that lawsuit as of Thursday.

As secretary of state, Ashcroft also supported recent GOP-led changes to Missouri’s election laws, including requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the ballot box.

The Republican top election official was criticized in January after The Star revealed that he met with right-wing conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell in Jefferson City just after the start of the legislative session. Lindell played a major role in promoting baseless election conspiracies in the wake of the 2020 election and has continued to elevate debunked claims about the election in the years that have followed.

Prior to the start of the session, Ashcroft promoted a legislative agenda that prioritized changes to election law and has expressed opposition to expanded mail voting.

Before jumping into politics, Ashcroft graduated with engineering management degrees from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla and worked at an engineering firm in West Plains. He later graduated from St. Louis University Law School and practiced law for eight years in St. Louis County, working cases related to regulatory compliance, patent prosecution and election law.

He and his wife, Katie, have three sons and one daughter.