Hawley, Kunce headline Missouri Senate race

By Kyle Schmidt

A former Marine is mounting a challenge against a first-term incumbent who has made a national name for himself in Missouri’s senate race.

The race pits Republican Josh Hawley against Democrat Lucas Kunce. Three other candidates, Libertarian W.C. Young, Jared Young of the Better Party and Nathan Kline of the Green Party, also are campaigning for the seat.

Hawley, who grew up in Lexington, Missouri, graduated in 2002 from Stanford and Yale universities and became Missouri’s Attorney General in 2017. He defeated incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in 2018 for the Senate seat.

Now himself the incumbent, Hawley reflected on the last five years.

“It’s a privilege to wake up every day and get to serve the great state of Missouri,” Hawley said. “… It’s just an enormous privilege to get to represent the people of this state and to fight for the things that we believe in.”

Hawley noted he hasn’t been a follower during his time in Washington and is “not beloved by the congressional leadership in D.C.” He pointed out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as someone he has gone “round and round” with.

“I’m proud of that because I am not there to toe a party line, I’m there to do what’s best for the people of Missouri,” Hawley said. “When I think it is the right thing to do, I will stick by it.”

If re-elected, Hawley has many goals in mind for a second term. Closing the border, getting jobs back in the country, protecting law enforcement officers and getting the crime rate down are areas where he said he’ll put his focus.

His opponent Lucas Kunce, a Jefferson City native, grew up in a paycheck-to-paycheck household. Through Pell Grants, he also made his way to Yale then later got his law degree at the University of Missouri.

Kunce served on active duty in the Marine Corps for 13 years. When he got back from Afghanistan the second time, he wanted to make a change, he said.

“Coming back in 2014 and seeing what had happened to this just incredible slice of Americana, working-class neighborhood, the first house I lived in torn down,” Kunce said, “…That was the point where I was like, ‘Something really needs to be done about this and then I went to the Pentagon.”

During four years at the Pentagon Kunce “saw things to continue to deteriorate” and thought he needed to do more, spurring him to run for Senate.

As a seventh-generation Missourian, Kunce said his top goal is to give those in his home state opportunities.

“Bringing money home and making the law so that you can make your own decisions about protecting your family, about raising them and giving you the opportunity to make real wages,” he said.

Kunce said he also believes there are not enough veterans in Congress and he wants that to change.

Better Party candidate Jared Young said he’s in the Senate race because he’s tired of the way national politics have gone.

“Both by the tone and by the direction, I feel like our national leaders have lost the ability to disagree productively,” Young said. “We need leaders that actually know how to sit down, have discussions and solve complex issues.”

The father of six said he wants to focus on areas where there is broad agreement between voters but no progress is made “because of partisan warfare and gamesmanship.”

Candidates W.C. Young and Kline did not respond to News-Press NOW’s request for interviews.