After Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade launched her Democratic campaign for governor this week by emphasizing a humble early life that included becoming the first person in her family to graduate high school, Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe took to social media to highlight his own upbringing by a single mom with six children.
Quade’s entry into the 2024 race for governor has for the moment placed the candidates’ childhood and youth at the center of the contest – and spurred a fight over what lessons Missourians should take from their by-the-bootstraps narratives.
As Quade and Kehoe, a candidate for more than a year, seek to make an impression among donors and voters, they are also contrasting their origin stories with the other major GOP candidate, state Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, son of John Ashcroft, a former governor, senator and U.S. attorney general.
