ST. LOUIS — Gubernatorial candidate John Brunner appeared on This Week in Missouri Politics Sunday and among the many topics of conversation, he was asked his thoughts on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Host Scott Faughn, publisher of the Missouri Times, said that Brunner and Trump shared the connection of being businessmen with no prior experience in elected office, but Brunner seemed to shrug off the comparison.
“I don’t know of the analogy between me and Trump,” he said. “I was in the manufacturing business. I made things for a living. Our family business has been around for 109 years.”
Brunner then said he would not mind campaigning with Trump… so long as Trump comes to Missouri to endorse him.
“It is about the outsider, the business person, and that’s why folks across this country have chosen Donald Trump,” Brunner said. “I hope he comes to Missouri to support me, support the governor’s race and help us to get this country back.”
Brunner’s comments mark the same sort of shoulder shrug that many of the other Republican gubernatorial candidates make when it comes to a Trump candidacy. While a St. Louis Post-Dispatch cover seemed to indicate the four candidates had sworn fealty to the new king of the Republican party with big bold letters “FOUR FOR TRUMP,” none of them seem willing to wholly endorse the New York real estate mogul, although all of them have stated in the past that they would support the eventual nominee. In the Fox 2 debate last week, Eric Greitens and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder both stressed that they would run their own campaigns, although they voiced support for Trump in his bid for the presidency – namely because of his opponent.
“[Kinder]’s stayed with his statement that he would support the Republican nominee because it’s better than Hillary Clinton,” Pam Dixon, a spokeswoman for the Kinder campaign, said Monday. “The lieutenant governor has always been a team player.”
Only former House Speaker Catherine Hanaway said she would definitely campaign with Trump if he made an appearance in Missouri, lending him her support as opposed to lending any semblance of support for Clinton. A spokesman for her campaign reiterated her support Monday.
The Greitens campaign did not respond immediately to requests to comment.
That said, the candidates all agreed that Trump has made some objectionable statements. The debate came just days after Trump said the Hispanic judge overseeing the class action civil suit against Trump University for fraud could not fairly judge the case because of his ethnicity. Many Republicans, including U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R – Wisc., rebuked those comments but only a handful have dropped their support for the nominee.
While some Republicans are wary of attaching their name to Trump’s, Missouri may actually be a state favorable to the candidate and for Republicans to embrace. A Fort Hays State University poll had Trump leading Clinton in a head-to-head by five points in March just before the presidential primary, and rumors indicate that lead may be stretching.
(Above picture was made available by Gage Skidmore.)
