In Missouri Senate race with two Erics, Trump endorses Eric

[August 02, 2022]  By Moira Warburton and Alexandra Ulmer

(Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump has promised to weigh in on the Republican nomination for the Missouri Senate race, hotly contested between Eric Greitens, former state governor, and Eric Schmitt, the State Attorney General.

On Monday, the eve of the primary, Trump stunned political watchers by issuing a highly unusual statement simply endorsing "Eric," suggesting he was hedging his bets between the two candidates.

"We need a person who will not back down to the Radical Left Lunatics who are destroying our Country," Trump said in the statement. "I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds.... I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"

Asked for clarification on whom Trump was endorsing, spokesperson Taylor Budowich said the statement "speaks for itself."

A Missouri Republican political operative told Reuters it was "clearly a dual endorsement."

Both Greitens and Schmitt, however, claimed Trump's endorsement in Tweets sent just minutes apart.
 

"I'm honored to receive President Trump's endorsement," Greitens said first, adding criticism of his rival: "President Trump said it best when he characterized Schmitt's campaign as 'great dishonesty in politics.'"

Some 11 minutes later, Schmitt posted that he was "grateful" for Trump's endorsement. "I'll take that fight to the Senate to SAVE AMERICA!" he added, parroting Trump's slogan.

GREITENS WARNING

Trump, who has become a kingmaker in the Republican Party during primaries for the November midterm elections, has endorsed some 200 candidates in 2022, with mixed results in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt speaks during a news conference after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in President Joe Biden's bid to rescind a Trump-era immigration policy that forced migrants to stay in Mexico to await U.S. hearings on their asylum claims, in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

But Trump, who is weighing another White House run in 2024, regularly claims his endorsements are hugely successful, raising the questions of whether he was trying to protect his record through the dual endorsement in the closely fought race.

"Trump's really worried about taking a loss on this one," the Republican Accountability Project, a conservative anti-Trump group, said on Twitter.

Before Trump issued his statement, U.S. Senator John Thune, the chamber's No 2 Republican, warned that a Greitens nomination could prove costly for the party.

"If he were the nominee, it would cost millions and millions and millions of dollars, because I think he's got a brand that's going to be very hard to defend in the general election," Thune told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

Greitens' campaign has been dogged by allegations made under oath by his ex-wife of domestic violence and child abuse. He has denied the allegations.

To be sure, there is one candidate Trump definitely did not endorse: Representative Vicky Hartzler, who is also running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Tuesday's primary.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco. Additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington D.C. Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Bradley Perrett & Shri Navaratnam)

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