Democrat Mark Osmack has suspended his campaign for state Senate, he announced Saturday.
Osmack, who was challenging incumbent GOP Sen. Andrew Koenig, said he decided to step aside for “several reasons,” alluding to state Rep. Deb Lavender’s decision to enter the SD-15 race. He said the choice to end his campaign “hurts.”
“This is about how to defeat an extremist and we Democrats don’t need any additional help in defeating ourselves,” Osmack said. “We’re quite good at that already. A Democratic primary in this District while working full time simply isn’t possible.”
For now, Osmack said he’s going to focus on his upcoming wedding and continue with his work in the Army Reserve. He unequivocally told The Missouri Times he does not have plans to run for any other office in 2020.
“The current leadership in Jefferson City clearly isn’t getting it done. Their policies of cutting healthcare, cutting education, cutting workers’ rights aren’t making anything better,” Osmack previously told The Missouri Times when he decided to run. “My goal is to bring Missouri back and push us forward so we can be a place where people want to live.”
Osmack has said he was surprised by Lavender’s decision to run for the Senate seat, especially as she is still eligible for one more term in the House. However, he said he will support her campaign against Koenig.
“Our plan was simple: to defeat Andrew Koenig, we must unite from the beginning and avoid a frivolous primary. Through this, my ever-present concern was not to step on another Democrat’s toes. A person must have a code,” he said Saturday.
SD-15 encompasses part of St. Louis County.
Kaitlyn Schallhorn was the editor in chief of The Missouri Times from 2020-2022. She joined the newspaper in early 2019 after working as a reporter for Fox News in New York City.
Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has covered political campaigns across the U.S., including the 2016 presidential election, and humanitarian aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East.
She is a native of Missouri who studied journalism at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She is also an alumna of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
Contact Kaitlyn at kaitlyn@themissouritimes.com.
