John Wood (I), a former senior investigator for the January 6th Select Committee, announced that he was suspending his campaign for U.S. Senate in Missouri. Wood qualified for the ballot on August 1, one day before the state’s Republican primary. On August 23, Wood said that he saw no path to victory in the general election following Eric Greitens’ loss to Eric Schmitt in the Republican primary.
In a statement, Wood said, “I made the decision to run for the United States Senate when Eric Greitens was the favorite for the Republican nomination. That would have been unacceptable, embarrassing, and dangerous for my party, my state, and my country.”
Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth (R) endorsed Wood, while Danforth’s Missouri Stands United PAC spent more than $3 million supporting Wood’s campaign. Wood said he filed to run “as an independent to offer Missourians who are fed up and exhausted by the status quo something better. A common sense campaign that unites our state instead of dividing us,” and that he would serve as an independent who caucuses with the Republican Party.
Trudy Busch Valentine (D), Eric Schmitt (R), and five other candidates are running in the general election for one of Missouri’s U.S. Senate seats on November 8, 2022. Sen. Roy Blunt (R), who first took office in 2011, announced on March 8, 2021, that he would not seek re-election.
As of August 2022, three independent election forecasters rated the general election as Solid Republican or Safe Republican. Donald Trump (R) won the state in the 2020 presidential election by a 15.4 percentage point margin. The last time a Democratic candidate won a statewide election in Missouri was in 2012, when U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) and Gov. Jay Nixon (D) both won re-election. Missouri’s other U.S. Senator, Josh Hawley (R), won the 2018 election by a 5.8 percentage point margin.
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