JEFFERSON CITY — Attorney General Andrew Bailey received an early Christmas present this week from Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, two of the state’s best-known Republican political donors.
The couple, of Westphalia, gave Bailey’s Liberty and Justice PAC $100,000 on Friday, adding to the $50,000 the two gave to Bailey in June.
The end-of-year assistance amounts to a vote of confidence in the incumbent attorney general as he competes against former federal prosecutor Will Scharf in the Aug. 6 Republican primary.
“We are thankful for the Sinquefields’ support,†said Michael Hafner, spokesman for Bailey’s campaign.
The Sinquefield check Friday was the second largest either Rex Sinquefield or the couple have written this year.
Rex Sinquefield gave Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe $250,000 in September, continuing a string of six-figure checks to the Republican candidate for governor.
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Bailey also won the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt in recent weeks, and has raked in a number of additional large checks, including $100,000 from August A. Busch III, the former Anheuser-Busch chairman, in late November and $300,000 from retired Minneapolis couple Mike and Carolyn Rayner in March.
Scharf, meanwhile, has won support from national conservative figures, including Leonard Leo, a conservative legal activist with the influential Federalist Society. Scharf’s campaign also declared in July that it doesn’t expect the Republican Attorneys General Association to support Bailey, Politico .
Scharf has also taken in small-dollar donations from across the country, distancing himself from a campaign vendor that former President Trump’s campaign has criticized for deceptively using Trump’s likeness to raise money, the Missouri Independent in October.
Last month, as Scharf was scheduled to host a fundraiser at his parents’ home in Palm Beach, Florida, Bailey’s spokesman dubbed Scharf “The Duke of Palm Beach.â€
On Friday, Hafner tried out a new nickname for Scharf, calling him “Wall Street Willy†and accusing Scharf of “relying on coastal elites to buy him a political office.â€
Bailey’s fundraising has also come under scrutiny.
A co-owner of the marijuana company that recently lost its state license hosted a fundraiser for Bailey in November; the owner of a lead mining company donated to Bailey after he sided with the company in a lead-poisoning lawsuit; and his campaign took money from PACs tied to a politically connected company that has flooded the state with unregulated slot machines.
“Andrew Bailey has hung a for sale sign on the door of the Attorney General’s Office,†Scharf said Friday. “Taking money from parties with pending cases before his office, from illegal slot machine vendors and from pot dealers under active investigation has been a shameful chapter in the history of the office. Fortunately, that chapter will end next year.â€