The fever surrounding former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens might finally be starting to break. Greitens had been leading a crowded field for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination despite the credible allegations of physical and sexual violence that drove him from the governor’s office four years ago. But after recent, additional allegations from his ex-wife, new polling shows Greitens has now slipped to second place.
It’s astonishing that more than a fifth of Republican poll respondents still say Greitens belongs in the Senate. But the fact that his star seems finally to be fading is an encouraging sign of some sanity returning to the GOP electorate.
Greitens, elected governor in 2016, resigned in disgrace two years later after allegations from his former hairdresser that he struck and abused her during their extramarital affair before he took office. Among her allegations was that he took a cellphone picture of her without her consent while she was restrained and partly nude, then threatened to publicize it if she revealed their affair. Greitens admitted to the affair while denying the abuse allegations, but he resigned in mid-2018 to avoid impeachment and prosecution.
That appeared to be (and should have been) the ignominious end to the Greitens era. But he shocked the political world here and nationally last year by entering the Republican race to replace retiring Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt in this fall’s midterms. The shock was compounded when Greitens, sporting a new persona as a Trumpian right-wing extremist, took the lead among Republicans.
It’s fair to ask what those Greitens-supporting GOP voters could possibly have been thinking by elevating a candidate so obviously unfit. GOP Senate leaders have been in a panic over the prospect of his nomination. Now they, and Missouri, might finally be able to rest a little easier.
An independent poll released last week by the Trafalgar Group showed Greitens’ support at 24%, an 8-point drop from the poll’s earlier findings. The poll found U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler now leading, with 25% support among Republicans, and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt third at 22%.
Separate recent polls conducted for both Hartzler and Schmitt should be taken with some skepticism — as Politico reports, each shows its own candidate leading — but the conclusion that Greitens has lost the lead is consistent across the board.
Greitens’ slide follows last month’s court filings by his ex-wife, Sheena Greitens, alleging physical violence toward her and their children, and “unstable and coercive behavior.” Greitens denies the allegations. But there’s no denying that two different women now have separately and credibly accused him of behavior that, in any rational political universe, would be instantly disqualifying for public office. More polling is needed, but it appears that, on this issue at least, Missouri’s Republican voters are, indeed, returning to such a universe.
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