JEFFERSON CITY — Jefferson County used to be a bellwether, regularly helping to catapult Missouri Democrats to statewide office. But the predominantly white, working-class, union-friendly county south of ºüÀêÊÓƵ hasn’t voted for the Democrat in a U.S. Senate race since 2012, with voters bolting to Republicans in recent years.
Democrats waging an uphill fight for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Roy Blunt are attempting to turn that around next year. On Wednesday night, six Democrats trekked to Jefferson College in Hillsboro for a candidate forum, hoping to differentiate themselves from the pack.
“We’re going to win because we are meeting people where they’re at. So I have a very clear message that we need to fundamentally change who has power in our country so that it’s not these massive corporations buying off our politicians and stripping our communities for parts,†said Lucas Kunce, the top fundraiser in the race, who said he voted in Washington, D.C., in the 2020 election despite there being no record of it.
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“I have proven repeatedly that I can beat tough, well-funded Republicans,†said former state Sen. Scott Sifton, a two-term state senator who flipped a south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County seat in 2012. “They took the best shots they had at us, and we beat them even more the second time.â€
Other candidates included Gena Ross, who ran for Congress in the heavily Republican 6th Congressional District last year; Jewel Kelly, an Air Force veteran from Jefferson County; Spencer Toder, an entrepreneur from Olivette; and Tim Shepard, an activist from Kansas City.
Some differences among the field emerged when Elad Gross, the event moderator, began asking questions.
Asked about compromising on President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better†agenda, Kelly, who describes himself as a moderate, said Democrats first needed to pass the already negotiated, bipartisan infrastructure bill stalled in the House before finalizing a larger package aimed at addressing universal prekindergarten, climate change and other party priorities.
“We have to start small to go fast,†Kelly said. “We can’t get everything at once.â€
“We don’t have to sit back and take what they give us,†Ross said. “We’ve got to press back. We’re taxpayers.â€
She said it would be “my pleasure to represent you and stick up and stand up for you so you can thrive instead of just survive.â€
“Infrastructure isn’t just roads and broadband — which it is — but it’s all of the services that we need in order to have a functional society,†Toder said. “These bills are going to be passed. Right now we’re negotiating against ourselves to decide what we’re going to take out.â€
Kunce said “we need to break the link between massive corporations and politics. We need abolish corporate PACs, and we need to end Citizens United. That is how we get things like this done, alright?†Citizens United refers to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that the First Amendment bars the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, unions and other groups.
Shepard said he would press two Democratic holdouts on their positions.
“The first thing I would do is ask (Arizona Sen.) Kyrsten Sinema and (West Virginia Sen.) Joe Manchin what it is that they would accept in a bill,†he said, “so that we can get the thing passed and prove to the electorate that when we have power as Democrats we’re very capable of governing.â€
“In a 50-50 Senate, we need to elect more Democrats,†Sifton said. “We are absolutely at the mercy of folks who hold votes 49 and 50. That’s the reality.â€
He said failing to act “sure didn’t help†the governor’s race in Virginia this week, in which Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in a state that had been trending blue.
Gross, the moderator, began the forum with a question about Taiwan, whose President Tsai Ing-wen .
“We cannot impose democracy on any country, but we owe it to defend democracy at any cost,†said Kelly, an Air Force veteran, before laying out several diplomatic options.
“The No. 1 thing that we have to do when it comes to China and Taiwan is start building things here in America again,†said Kunce, a Marine veteran. Taiwan has a “†on semiconductors, he said.
“Our entire economy would absolutely shut down if China did something in Taiwan,†Kunce said.
“We’re not going to tolerate aggression,†Shepard said, adding there needed to be an “organization in the Pacific similar to NATO,†referring to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which the United States is a member.