Marine veteran running for U.S. Senate wants to take back 'populist' label

A military veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan is running for one of Missouri's U.S. Senate seats to take back a political label he said has been wrongly applied to others.

Lucas Kunce is one of nearly a dozen Democrats seeking the party's nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt.

"The media keep anointing people populists who don't do anything about changing who has power in this country. My campaign isn't a left-right campaign. It's a top-bottom campaign where I am trying to bring everyday people together to punch up and actually get us things we deserve, things we've earned, and stop transferring wealth from us overseas and to other people. That's populism," he said in a video call Wednesday. "That's the brand of Harry Truman ... William Jennings Bryan before him. ... It is about empowering everyday people against the people who are stripping our communities for parts."

A 13-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who left active duty in late 2020, Kunce serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. While on active duty, he deployed to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. He lamented that economic inequity is allowing the U.S. to slip toward those haves-and-have-nots cultures.

"There, if you have wealth and you have power and you have access, the whole world is yours. Normal folks, look at someone the wrong way and you're going to get stoned," he noted. "I want everyone in America to have freedom. I want everyone to have opportunity, but I am seeing a two-tier system."

Kunce said that is most evident in the U.S. Senate.

"I think we need to fundamentally change who has power in this country, and there is no place where it is being abused more than there," he said. "We have all these people who don't understand how normal folks live. They don't realize that most of us live paycheck to paycheck, one disaster from bankruptcy. They really don't, and if they did, they would make decisions very differently than they do."

He recounted personal situations that highlight financial perils many Americans face. He said a sibling's heart surgery forced the family into bankruptcy and added that a health issue with his mother resulted in her giving up her job and moving in with him in recent years. He said help and kindness from friends and neighbors has sustained the family.

Foreign influence

A graduate of Yale University and University of Missouri law school, Kunce decried foreign influence on many sectors of the U.S. economy, including agriculture and energy, noting U.S. naval resources patrol the Persian Gulf while many oil shipments passing through the region do not deliver that fuel to the U.S.

"Our military is literally defending Chinese supply chain so the energy can go there and so they can use that energy to invest in the next generation of energy and beat us," he said. "It's crazy, and the reason we operate that way is because our country operates on what Wall Street wants."

Kunce branded China as a significant competitor and pointed to U.S. dependence on Chinese goods.

"You can't make a single weapon system in the American arsenal without an input from China. How is that good? How is that a good plan?" he asked.

He said he would support prohibiting foreign countries from owning U.S. farmland and said foreign-owned companies, such as Smithfield, control too much of the U.S. agriculture industry, to the detriment of American farmers. One example he gave involves the U.S. Department of Agriculture's national animal identification system, which tracks animals through production and processing to "control and eradicate animal diseases." But, he said, the system favors large producers.

"If you are a small farmer, you have to pay $1 to $20 for every single head of cattle. If you are a concentrated animal feed operation, you only have to tag one animal per lot," he explained, saying such disparity puts small producers at a financial disadvantage.

Kunce noted his campaign does not accept contributions from corporate political action committees, federal lobbyists or fossil fuel and pharmaceutical company executives.

Whomever wins the party's nomination will face the Republican nominee and several independents.