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By Daniel Desrochers
Updated March 29, 2022 8:58 AM
Trudy Busch Valentine officially launched her campaign for U.S. Senate in Missouri Tuesday, shaking up a relatively quiet Democratic primary. Her announcement was preempted by former state Sen. Scott Sifton, who abruptly withdrew on Monday night and threw his support behind Busch Valentine. In her campaign launch video, Busch Valentine, 64, talks about her family farm, working as a nurse, her son’s opioid overdose and her father, August Busch, who helped build Anheuser-Busch into one of the largest breweries in the world. “We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We just need to talk to each other again, exchange ideas with honesty and integrity,” Busch Valentine said. “That’s why I decided to run for the United States Senate, because we need something different. We need a new politics, one that puts the good of all people first.”
www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article259887735.html
Interesting development.
Updated March 29, 2022 8:58 AM
Trudy Busch Valentine officially launched her campaign for U.S. Senate in Missouri Tuesday, shaking up a relatively quiet Democratic primary. Her announcement was preempted by former state Sen. Scott Sifton, who abruptly withdrew on Monday night and threw his support behind Busch Valentine. In her campaign launch video, Busch Valentine, 64, talks about her family farm, working as a nurse, her son’s opioid overdose and her father, August Busch, who helped build Anheuser-Busch into one of the largest breweries in the world. “We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We just need to talk to each other again, exchange ideas with honesty and integrity,” Busch Valentine said. “That’s why I decided to run for the United States Senate, because we need something different. We need a new politics, one that puts the good of all people first.”
While she received a degree in nursing after graduating college and volunteered to help vaccinate people during the COVID-19 pandemic, Busch Valentine is best known for her philanthropy. This is her first campaign. She was married to John Dee Valentine until his death from cancer in 2002. She has six children and eight grandchildren. Her son Matthew died of an opioid overdose in 2020. Democrats increasingly see the race as an opportunity to pick up the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. The Republican primary field is led by former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned from office in 2018 amid multiple scandals and was recently accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife. Busch Valentine enters as a candidate with a well-known name and the personal wealth to match the fundraising lead built out by former Marine Lucas Kunce. Kunce, who grew up in Missouri before attending Yale and joining the military, has been attempting to run a populist campaign to win back working-class voters who have fled the Democratic Party for the GOP.
Busch Valentine appears to be taking the opposite approach. Her campaign video appears focused on the political middle-ground, drawing on an argument recently made by former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth that there’s room for a centrist candidate in the U.S. Senate race because of voter fatigue with the polarization of the two major parties. Her launch was rocky. After filing for U.S. Senate at 4 p.m. on Monday, Busch Valentine’s quiet entry into the race was upended by the surprise announcement that Sifton was dropping out and throwing his endorsement to her campaign. In a press release announcing his withdrawal, Sifton urged Democrats to unite behind Busch Valentine. “I have seen her in action working on issues in the community and know she will do right by Missourians,” Sifton wrote. “I am excited to see what she can do for our state in the Senate, and call on all other Democrats in the field to lend her their support.” Kunce’s campaign has yet to comment on the new development in the race.
www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article259887735.html
Interesting development.