LADUE — Mark Mantovani is hoping ºüÀêÊÓƵ County voters will set aside partisan differences this November. In fact, he’s betting on it.
Mantovani, a retired Ladue businessman and two-time Democratic candidate, is the last-minute Republican nominee to take on County Executive Sam Page in the Nov. 8 general election. And everything is stacked against him: He has less than six weeks left to campaign. He’s running against an incumbent. His campaign coffers were essentially empty before his surprise nomination about three weeks ago.
And his entire campaign is focused on convincing people to vote against their parties. For Mantovani to win, Democrats have to vote for a Republican and Republicans have to vote for a longtime Democrat.
“My message is the same to everybody. The message is built on the notion of returning county government to excellence and eliminating dysfunction,†Mantovani said in an hourslong interview at his Ladue home. “I don’t think that’s a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. I think that’s an American idea.â€
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It’s not outlandish. Voters have been known to vote against their party when they believe it’s in their best interest, said Betsy Sinclair, a political science professor at Washington University who studies voter behavior.
“There’s the case to be made here that the party label is less important than ability,†Sinclair said. “They’re thinking: Is this person going to be able to fill the potholes on Big Bend Boulevard?â€
And support for Mantovani is growing. The ºüÀêÊÓƵ County police union, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, Republican Councilmen Tim Fitch and Mark Harder and former Republican County Executive Gene McNary, who served in the role from 1975 to 1989, have already come out for him.
“It’s a Democrat county. We all recognize that,†McNary said.
Page said he believes a majority of county voters think he guided them well through scandals, a pandemic, social unrest and the fall of Roe v. Wade. Mantovani doesn’t have a record in government to run on, and his flip-flopping between parties, Page said, will make voters wonder what he really stands for.
“People got to know basically where you’re coming from,†said Page, a 57-year-old anesthesiologist from Creve Coeur. “I’ve been very outspoken on issues that would align with Democrats, and Mark has not been.â€
Mantovani is a last-minute pick for county Republicans. Katherine Pinner, an anti-vaccine and anti-mask candidate from unincorporated ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, won a surprise victory in the August primary but then dropped out a month later. The county Republican Central Committee scrambled to collect résumés for a replacement candidate. Other than Mantovani, the candidates who stepped forward didn’t have much name recognition, money or experience.
When GOP leaders came to Mantovani asking him to run, he insisted on running a bipartisan campaign. The county GOP agreed. After all, a former Democrat might be their best bet in a county that has favored Democratic candidates for decades.
Mantovani, 68, sat down with the Post-Dispatch to explain his campaign strategy, ideology and vision for the county.
He is pro-business and supports the LGBTQ community. He believes in the efficacy of masks and vaccines against COVID-19 but also opposes closing businesses during the pandemic. He wants to attract investment to ºüÀêÊÓƵ County and demolish derelict buildings in North County. He voted for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump but has voted for Republicans in the past.
His campaign strategy is clear: He’s banking on the idea that voters are tired of the partisan divide and that a centrist can appeal to voters from both parties.
‘It’s the only job I want’
Mantovani grew up in Affton as the middle child of a stay-at-home mother and a father who sold paint for a living. Mantovani’s grandfather had immigrated to to ºüÀêÊÓƵ from northern Italy, and the Italian Catholic influence was a strong presence in his childhood. All the boys in his family attended ºüÀêÊÓƵ University High, a Jesuit Catholic school.
After earning his bachelor’s degree at another Catholic institution, Quincy University in Illinois, he finished his law degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master’s in business from the University of Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Patty, decided they wanted to raise their children in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and returned to the area in 1985.
He co-founded a law firm, retired as CEO from an international marketing corporation and didn’t run for office until 2018.
Mantovani’s late mother was never fond of politics. When she saw her son becoming increasingly involved in civic life in the early 2000s, she warned him against running for office.
“My mother said to me on a number of occasions, ‘Someday they’re going to come to you, and they’re going to ask you to run for office. Don’t you dare,’†said Mantovani. “She had the view of politics that it was sort of an ugly, dirty activity.â€
But in the years after her 2013 death, he ran and lost twice, first in 2018 to former County Executive Steve Stenger, who was later indicted in a pay-to-play scheme, and then to Page in 2020.
He did not expect to run again. But in August, Mantovani’s GOP friends came to him to fill the slot left by Pinner. Those conversations turned into talks with the Republican Central Committee.
Mantovani hired the ºüÀêÊÓƵ-based political consulting firm Victory Enterprises to run his campaign, and spokesman Ed Rhode, a former aide to ºüÀêÊÓƵ Mayor Francis Slay and political adviser to Stenger. Mantovani put $100,000 into his campaign and began planning fundraisers. Then he started a round of interviews with local press, and within the next week, the campaign will start airing commercials.
He said recently he could be spending his days on the golf course. So why did he let county Republicans convince him to run?
“It’s the only job I want. All I want to do is help ºüÀêÊÓƵ,†Mantovani said. “I’ll sleep better at night having offered my services.â€
Bipartisan ideology
Mantovani calls himself fiscally conservative but socially moderate.
And he thinks that will appeal to voters. The county executive is an administrative job, he said, and residents just want their neighborhoods to be safe, their roads to be smooth, their government to run efficiently and their economy to grow. Ideologies on racism, abortion and LGBTQ rights, for instance, don’t affect county government, he said.
“I wish we had more people who cared about their hometown than about what the label is,†Mantovani said. “How does that affect my leading the county? I don’t think it’s relevant to providing leadership.â€
He says his pro-business approach to government, with an emphasis on economic development and fiscally responsible budget-making makes him a Republican. But Republicans and Democrats share views on some basic issues, Mantovani said. His position on some, if elected:
- Create short-, medium- and long-term plans to address crime. Focus on community centers and community policing programs. Fill officer vacancies at the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Police Department.
- Aggressively market ºüÀêÊÓƵ County to outside investors and partner with regional election officials, be it Democratic ºüÀêÊÓƵ Mayor Tishaura O. Jones or Republican Congresswoman Ann Wagner, to attract business.
- Demolish abandoned buildings in North County and urge the state to invest in the University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Tear down Jamestown Mall, which has sat vacant for more than a decade.
- Collaborate more closely with ºüÀêÊÓƵ city police and public health departments.
- Review potential budget cuts. Use a windfall of federal COVID-19 relief money to shore up the budget deficit. Coordinate with ºüÀêÊÓƵ on the use of settlement money from the lawsuit against the NFL.
Voters haven’t elected a Republican county executive in more than 30 years. From 2000 to 2020, Democrats beat Republicans by nearly 17 percentage points on average in county executive races.
But Mantovani came out swinging at the Republican Central Committee meeting where he was nominated. He compared Page to a sloth for his subdued demeanor — a comment Mantovani said this week might not have been entirely appropriate.
“The point I was trying to make is that there has been a lack of energy,†Mantovani said. “We have to have a leader who can sell and communicate and make it clear what one thinks, and hopefully despite some of that presentation, it came through that I’m a person of passion for the community who’s anxious to get the place moving.â€