Eight Republicans face off in primary to be Missouri’s top election official

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s decision to forgo a third term in order to run for governor set off a mad dash of Republicans hoping to replace him.

Early entrants included online personality Valentina Gomez, Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller and state Rep. Adam Schwadron. They were eventually joined by longtime GOP strategist Jamie Corley, House Speaker Dean Plocher, state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman and Judge Mike Carter.

The winner of the crowded Aug. 6 GOP primary will take on one of three Democrats: Monique Williams, Barbara Phifer or Haley Jacobson.

Valentina Gomez

Gomez’s campaign for secretary of state exists nearly entirely online

She’s raised virtually no money, and doesn’t appear to have much of a campaign apparatus. What she does have, though, is the ability to draw attention from national news organizations with social media posts that are equal parts homophobia and feats of strength.

In an interview with “Wake Up Mid-Missouri,” Gomez said she plans to be the first successful candidate to win office “without holding a single fundraiser… we’re gonna win this with votes, not money.”

Gomez describes herself on her campaign website as “a real estate investor, financier, strategist, former NCAA Division I swimmer, relentless achiever, and a fierce advocate for the principle values we hold dear as Americans battling for a better future.”

Born in Colombia, but “made in the United States,” Gomez’s campaign says she’s “a testament of perseverance. Her success was not inherited, it has and continues to be earned through discipline and determination.”

Shane Schoeller

After serving three terms in the Missouri House, Schoeller won a competitive primary in 2012 to be the GOP nominee for secretary of state.

He went on to lose in the general election, but two years later won his current job as Greene County clerk — the top elections official in one of Missouri’s largest counties.

Schoeller says he’s the only candidate in the primary with the experience to be secretary of state.

“I come ready on day one,” he said. “It’s really important that we have a secretary of state who understands the duties and responsibilities of the office in terms of elections, voter registration and record retention.”

Voters continue to have concerns about the integrity of elections, Schoeller said, and one way to alleviate that would be to revamp Missouri’s central voter registration program, which he said is “dated in terms of its function and capacity.”

“When you work with that system, day in and day out, through voter registration and the administration of elections,” he said, “we need to have a program that is more up to date, more user friendly and that can also be better at providing information for the public.”

Denny Hoskins

Hoskins served in the Army National Guard before becoming a certified public accountant. He has represented Warrensburg in the state House and Senate, leaving the legislature after this year because of term limits.

His statehouse career is defined in recent years by his membership in the Senate Freedom Caucus, where Hoskins and his cohorts clashed with the chamber’s GOP leadership — creating years of gridlock in a battle over the party’s priorities.

Those rumbles with Republican leaders are also a key part of Hoskins’ campaign message, which he insists is proof he’s a fighter who will stand up for the values of his party.

“I’m a conservative fighter who believes our rights come from God, not state government,” Hoskins recently told supporters, noting he is the only candidate in the race for secretary of state that was endorsed by Missouri Right to Life.

If elected, Hoskins says he’d push for the hand counting of ballots, eliminating absentee voting except for the military and disabled and making Election Day a holiday to make it easier for Missourians to vote.

“We want to make sure our elections are free and fair and people trust the election process,” Hoskins told the Politically Speaking podcast. “That was the thing that got me interested in this race, that we could trust our elections and one person has one vote and only legal U.S. citizens vote.”

Adam Schwadron

Schwadron is the owner and operator of Clean Carpet Company in St. Charles County, and was elected to the state House in 2020.

The secretary of state oversees elections and business registration, and Schwadron believes his experience as small business owner and four-year member of the House Elections Committee give him insight into how the job should be done.

“Someone competent needs to be in this office,” he said. “And so I felt my professionalism, the way I’ve worked in the legislature with character and integrity, that’s what’s needed in elected office these days. And so that’s why I’m running.”

His biggest concern related to the secretary of state’s office, Schwadron said, is the “attempt by Democrats at the federal level to take over our elections.” He believes his rivals in the GOP primary don’t take the threat seriously enough.

He has sponsored legislation creating the “Missouri Elections Sovereignty Act,” which Schwadron says declares “our elections are ours, and any attempt by the federal government to come in here and tell us how to run our elections will be met with resistance.”

Jamie Corley

Corley is a veteran GOP political operative from St. Louis who has worked for three members of Congress, including as national press secretary for former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Most recently, she spearheaded a campaign seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot adding exceptions to the state’s abortion ban for rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormalities and the health and safety of the mother.

Her position on abortion, she notes, lines up with former President Donald Trump’s.

She decided to run for secretary of state, she said, when she looked at the crop of candidates in the race and realized there was no one she could vote for.

“We interact as citizens at the Secretary of State’s office more than we probably think,” she said. “Voting. Registering LLCs. Initiative petitions. It’s an important office.”

Though she’s never held public office before, Corley says she’s not short of experience in government. She’s worked in the U.S. Senate and House, and at a conservative think tank, so “I’m not new to public policy by any means.”

What she does lack is experience “in the absolute nonsense that has been the Missouri legislature for the past two years,” she said. “It’s a hard sell that the people who were responsible for that nonsense are all the sudden going to be competent leaders when they have to manage a statewide office.”

Dean Plocher

Plocher is an attorney who grew up in St. Louis and served as a municipal judge before winning a seat in the Missouri House.

During his time in the Capitol, Plocher rose to become speaker of the Missouri House and championed legislation aimed at making it harder to amend the state constitution. He also sponsored the constitutional amendment repealing the nonpartisan redistricting plan.

But for the last year Plocher has been engulfed in scandal over an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving a lucrative software contract and revelations he filed false expense reports for travel already paid for by his campaign. He currently faces a whistleblower lawsuit alleging he harassed and intimidated nonpartisan legislative staff.

Plocher denies any wrongdoing, and has tried to use his trevails to his advantage by morphing his public persona from a St. Louis moderate to an embattled MAGA warrior in the mold of former President Donald Trump. In a recent interview just before the anniversary of D-Day, he compared his struggles to the troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

“Democracy is not free,” Plocher said in an interview with one of his supporters. “You have to fight for it. And just as soldiers went out and gave their lives for our country, the politicians are out there, and they’re elected and answerable to the people. And right now, it’s unelected bureaucrats who are trying to run this country. It’s unelected bureaucrats who are trying to run the state of Missouri.”

Mary Elizabeth Coleman

Coleman is an attorney from Arnold currently serving her first term in the Missouri Senate after six years in the Missouri House.

Asked about her time in the legislature, she is unequivocal about her proudest achievement.

“There’s no more important thing that we have done,” she said, “than to end abortion in the state of Missouri.”

Coleman was one of the architects of legislation that included a trigger allowing Missouri to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturned Roe v. Wade. When that happened in 2022, Missouri became the first state to outlaw the procedure.

“I’ll forever be proud of that,” she said. “I’m a conservative who delivers results. People want not just a fighter, but a fighter who can deliver. And my conservative record speaks for itself.”

Like much of the GOP primary field, Coleman talks about election integrity and ensuring only U.S. citizens can cast a ballot. But she also emphasizes ways she believes she can improve how the secretary of state interacts with Missouri businesses.

“We have got to do everything we can to make sure that every business owner’s experience is as positive and as minimal as possible,” she said. “We want the government to get out of people’s lives and when they have to be involved to be as effective and painless as possible.”

Mike Carter

Carter is an attorney and Wentzville municipal judge who ran in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor in 2020 and state Senate in 2022, falling short both times.

He told the Politically Speaking podcast that he decided to run for secretary of state because it was the race with the “least amount of competition, the least amount of dollars dedicated to it and the largest opening for me to repeat what I did in the past and ascend to the position.”

In his 2020 statewide race, Carter won nearly 27% of the vote in a four-way GOP primary. With a much more crowded field this year, he said replicating that success would likely mean victory.

He’s different from others seeking the office, Carter contends, because he won’t be beholden to donors or special interests.

“If I get in there,” he said, “I’ll have to answer just to the folks in the voting booth.”

The Missouri Independent is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy. It is staffed by veteran Missouri reporters and is dedicated to its mission of relentless investigative journalism that sheds light on how decisions in Jefferson City are made and their impact on individuals across the Show-Me State.