Jefferson City, Mo. — Eric Greitens has received more money from Los Angeles, California than from Kansas City, Missouri during his bid for U.S. Senate from the state of Missouri.
Campaign finance data from OpenSecrets, shows a stark discrepancy between Greitens and his Republican opponents in the primary for U.S. Senate, set to take place Aug 2.
Contributions from inside the Show Me state make up just 22% of Greitens’ campaign contributions. In comparison, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt receives 78% of his financial support from Missourians, while U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler receives 74% of her funding from Missourians.
Greitens’ lack of in-state funding is an anomaly, especially among Republicans. Both Schmitt and Hartzler find their most significant amount of funding in Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, Mo. and Columbia, Mo.
Greitens’ breakdown of funding by geographic area is vastly different. Like Schmitt, Greitens’ biggest area of funding is St. Louis. However, Los Angeles and Boca Raton, Fla. take up 2nd and 3rd in Greitens’ monetary contribution rankings respectively. Both of these coastal areas outrank 4th place Kansas City by a wide margin.
Out-of-state support in a Senate race is by no means exclusive to Greitens, Schmitt and Hartzler both receive significant money from donors in Boca Raton, Fla. and Washington D.C., respectively. Though those two geographic areas both stand in a distant 5th place behind their funding from Missouri’s metropolitan areas.
Greitens has more in common with Democrat Lucas Kunce, who has also found the majority of his funding from out-of-state sources. However, Kunce still receives more donations from Kansas City and St. Louis than any other out-of-state metropolitan area, despite finding about 70% of his funding outside of Missouri.
The difference in individual contributions is also stark.
Of Greitens’ 3,184 contributions from 2021-2022, just 453 of them come from Missouri, according to the Federal Election Commission. That’s good for about 14% of his contributions coming from Missouri.
His Republican competition finds their donations much closer to home. Of Schmitt’s 1,684 contributions in the same time period, 1,271 come from Missouri, a vast majority.
The same is true for Hartzler, who received 1,926 contributions from 2021-2022, with 1,321 of them coming from Missouri.
Gregg Keller, a Republican political consultant who is currently affiliated with a Political Action Committee (PAC) that supports Eric Schmitt’s bid for Senate, believes Missourians are finding it hard to put their name beside the Greitens campaign.
“There really are, and have been no, Missouri Republican donors, by and large, who have been willing to contribute to the Eric Greitens campaign,” Keller said on a phone call. “What you basically see is non-Missouri billionaires cutting checks to outside PACs that are affiliated with his campaign, but not (giving money) to his campaign itself.”
Greitens has had a few bad poll results recently as additional details about his alleged domestic and child abuse come to light. The former Gov. resigned in 2018 after a sexual misconduct scandal.
Greitens is expected to testify about the alleged abuse in court Wednesday after Associate Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider ordered Greitens and his ex-wife, Sheena, to appear for depositions in a closed courtroom. Wednesday’s deposition will be the embattled former governor’s first testimony under oath on the abuse allegations.
“Very few Missourians are willing to put their name on the line in support of a man who is credibly and under oath accused of beating his wife and his four-year-old son,” Keller said. “So it seems that the only people who are willing to actually sign on the dotted line and be mentioned publicly as supporters of Eric Greitens are people who aren’t even Missourians.”
I’m a journalist hailing from the Detroit area. I love to tell investigative stories with a focus on everyday people.
You can contact me by email at matthew@missouritimes.com
