Democrat candidate McCallian: Rep. Smith has failed 8th District

Randi McCallian, a Democrat running to represent Missouri's 8th District, said Tuesday the incumbent congressman wants chaos at the federal level and hasn't improved economic conditions in the district during his time in office.

"(U.S. Rep. Jason) Smith is farther right than a libertarian," McCallian said while speaking at Southeast Missouri State University. "He wants to see the dissolution of government. He doesn't want us collecting any taxes. He wants it free-for-all, every man for himself — women and children and elderly be damned. He is supposed to be our main spokesperson in Congress, and he's not doing his job. At this point, he's only in it for himself. Again, he leads the poorest, hungriest district in the state with the least amount of job opportunities. And he's been there for nine years. So, it's not like he's slowly lifting us out of it, he just doesn't care."

McCallian will face Smith and Libertarian Jim Higgins in November's general election.

McCallian differentiated herself from Smith, contending he's a career politician.

"He entered as a legislator when he was 24 years old, so he's only done that," McCallian said. "Whereas I have more than 15 years' experience working with families and children. I have a background in public health and health care improvement. I will bring that experience to this district. I will be fighting for jobs. Fighting to improve our farm-to-table infrastructure."

McCallian said she believes people deserve a functioning infrastructure and jobs and access to healthy food. She said one in five children in the district are hungry. When children don't have access to healthy food, they don't develop to their full potential, she said, which perpetuates the cycles of poverty and poor health.

McCallian said she was running, in part, because there was no other Democrat on the ballot. She said for the last six months she has met and spoken to many people in the district and came to understand that the district was failing, and they were being failed by Jason Smith.

"We are the poorest district in the State of Missouri, also the hungriest district with the least amount of access to healthy food, and yet we're a farming district, and Jason calls himself a farmer," McCallian said.

She contended the 8th District has the least amount of economic opportunity and is worse off than the rest of the state.

One important issue for McCallian is taking better care of forests in the state.

"They are not healthy, and we really need to be taking care of places like the Mark Twain National Forest, not just because we should, but it's a part of preparing ourselves for the advancing climate crisis," McCallian said. "We're going to have more droughts, we're going to have more issues. Our forests need to be healthy to protect from that."

McCallian said there is a lot of opportunity for tourism in the district, but she opposes a proposal to designate some roads in the district into a scenic highway. She said it is dangerous to try to increase tourism on roads that need significant repair and are already not safe to drive on.

"Almost all of them are two lanes — no shoulder whatsoever — and we have massive semi-trucks from Amazon and Target driving on those roads," McCallian said.

She added that the companies that own these big trucks don't pay enough taxes to have those roads repaired.

"Your little car isn't doing the kind of damage that Amazon's constant use or Target's massive trucks are doing, so they are using us for them to have better profit," McCallian said.

She said one of the ways Smith is failing the district is by voting against things — such as the CHIPS Act, which regulates semiconductor manufacturing — instead of advocating for economic growth in the district.

"He should be working for us to have a chip factory in the 8th, because we are a manufacturing district, at least we used to be, and we absolutely could be that again," McCallian said. "We have the space for it, and we have the hard-working people to make it happen."