Josh Hawley wins second term in U.S. Senate, taking down Democrat Lucas Kunce in Missouri

Sen. Josh Hawley, the polarizing Missouri Republican known for his political brawling, marched to victory in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, defeating Democrat Lucas Kunce who attempted to unseat him with a populist message.

Hawley, 44, is already one of the youngest members of the Senate and now enters his second term with a mandate from Missourians to attempt to fundamentally reshape Republican politics in Washington in favor of a socially conservative agenda that focuses on the Republican Party’s working-class base.

The Associated Press called the race at 9:28 p.m. Hawley was winning 50.9% of the vote, compared to 46.6% for Democrat Lucas Kunce, 1.1% for Green Party candidate Nathan Kline and 0.7% for Better Party candidate Jared Young, according to the AP.

“THANK YOU, MISSOURI,” Hawley wrote on social media shortly after he was projected as the winner.

A member of a new wing of Republican politicians seeking to take the outsider appeal of former President Donald Trump and turn it into socially conservative policy, Hawley focused on working-class Missourians by denouncing the social and environmental policies of the Democratic Party while promising to restore manufacturing jobs and bring down taxes for working families.

“I think Missourians are enjoying watching him grill people that come before his various committees he serves on,” said James Harris, a Republican political analyst in Missouri. “And I would not be surprised if he ends up moving the America First or President Trump’s agenda, many pieces of legislation, through the United States Senate.”

Nationalizing the race

Immediately after launching his campaign, Hawley began trying to tie Kunce to the National Democratic Party. He claimed Kunce – who had spent the past year courting Missouri’s labor unions – would try to ban gas and diesel trucks and made ads criticizing him for opposing policies that would deny medical treatment for transgender children.

He even attempted to turn his criticism into a catchphrase for the campaign, leading call and response portions of his stump speech with the line “it’s nuts, but it’s Kunce.”

“This election is about defending us,” Hawley said at an October campaign stop in Jefferson City. “It’s defending our way of life. It is making sure it is strong for the years to come, and it is saying no to the nutty policies of Lucas Kunce and Kamala Harris.”

Hawley, who had been talked about as a potential presidential candidate in 2024, instead focused his attention on winning reelection in Missouri after it became clear that Trump wasn’t likely to step down from his role atop the Republican Party. Hawley repeatedly said he wouldn’t want a role in the Trump administration – neither vice president nor a cabinet position.

While he still focused on issues with broad national appeal, like reining in the tech industry, Hawley also gave significant political attention to a bill that would expand health benefits for people in St. Louis County who were affected by nuclear radiation.

“He did what he needed to do,” said Jeff Smith, a former Democratic Missouri state Senator. “He pivoted immediately at the end of 2022, away from the really polarizing J6 stuff for which he was known, towards a kind of more hard edge populism, correctly identifying his vulnerabilities back home.”

Kunce, meanwhile, argued that Hawley had done little for Missouri over the past six years – often pointing to the fact that Hawley doesn’t believe in using earmarks to help local projects secure federal money.

While Kunce launched his campaign with a reference to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol – Hawley was the first Senator to say he would object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election – he effectively dropped the issue early in the campaign.

Instead, Kunce focused on portraying Hawley as someone who wanted control over Missourians’ freedoms – tying the race to Missouri’s abortion amendment – while saying he had done little for the state.

“He doesn’t take care of us, he doesn’t bring money back home,” Kunce said in a debate on Fox 2 St. Louis. “You want to help out Missourians? How about bringing home the $300 million a year that Roy Blunt brought home every year? Josh Hawley, every year it’s $0.”

A late gaffe

In the final weeks of the campaign, that message was partially obscured by an incident at a photo-op north of Kansas City, where a reporter was accidentally hit by shrapnel while Kunce shot an automatic weapon at steel targets.

Hawley repeatedly mocked the incident – at one point telling reporters on the campaign trail that he promised not to shoot them.

“I just want to say to you guys, listen, I promise you I will not shoot you, no matter how many tough questions you ask,” Hawley said. “And I call on Lucas Kunce right now to pledge never to shoot another reporter again.”

The incident made an already difficult task even more difficult for Kunce. By running in a presidential year, Kunce would have had to convince thousands of Trump voters to split their ticket in a state that has increasingly voted for conservative candidates over the past two decades.

Smith, the former state Senator, said Kunce’s struggles largely came down to the fact that he was a Democrat running in a Republican state.

“He did more to show Missouri Democrats a path forward than anybody this cycle, and it involves economic populism,” Smith said. “Firming up the major metros, but then spending a lot of time in the hinterlands and talking about issues that matter to working-class people in the exurbs, in rural areas.”

But Hawley was still able to defeat Kunce overwhelmingly in the rural areas, helping to overcome the Democratic votes in larger metropolitan areas like Kansas City and St. Louis.

Hawley will likely enter his second term as a member of the majority party, as Republicans appeared poised to take control of the Senate on Tuesday night, giving him more power in the chamber.

Republicans are also poised to elect a new leader in the Senate after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would retire earlier this year. Hawley, who has frequently clashed with McConnell and has pronounced the old Republican Party “dead,” may benefit from having a closer ally leading the caucus.

“There’s a good deal of populism in Josh Hawley’s appeal,” said John Hancock, the former chairman of the Missouri Republican Party. “And I do think that he represents one of the newer directions in Republican politics.”

Jared Young, an independent candidate who formed the “Better Party,” failed to get enough support to ensure that his party would be on the ballot for the next Senate election.

Young attempted to run a moderate Republican campaign and secured the backing of former Missouri Sen. Jack Danforth, but he ultimately failed to pick up traction among voters.

Star Reporters Jonathan Shorman and Kacen Bayless contributed reporting to this article.