FARMINGTON, MO – JULY 31: Missouri Attorney General candidate and Republican Senate candidate Eric Schmidt speaks to supporters at Englar Park Pavilion Hall on July 31, 2022 in Farmington, Missouri. Schmidt is holding campaign events the last weekend before Missouri’s Aug. 2 primary. He is the front-runner in the primary race that features former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens to replace outgoing Sen. Roy Blunt. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
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Eric Greitens, the disgraced former governor of Missouri who is running for a comeback against the will of many Republicans, will lose the GOP Senate primary, NBC News projects.
Eric Schmidt, currently the state’s attorney general, is expected to move on to the general election, where he will compete against a Democratic candidate for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.
The primary results marked a resounding defeat for Greitens, who fully embraced former President Donald Trump and battled recent domestic violence allegations as he tried to claw his way back onto the political agenda.
Greitens announced his Senate bid nearly three years after resigning from the governor’s office amid allegations that he blackmailed a hairdresser with whom he had an affair. Greitens admitted to the encounter but denied threatening to release nude photos he took of her if she revealed the affair.
He was charged with felony invasion of privacy related to the alleged extortion. Greitens was also accused of illegally using a list of charitable donors to help finance his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. Both charges were dropped by the time Greitens resigned in June 2018.
Eric Greitens, Governor of Missouri, pictured at the Robin Hood Veterans Reunion in New York.
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Those and other scandals have left mainstream Republicans worried that Greitens’ candidacy threatens the party’s hold on a Senate seat in a state that otherwise reliably votes Republican for high office. Democrats are desperate to hold on to their slim majority in the Senate, but their control of the chamber is threatened by a challenging political environment exacerbated by the unpopularity of President Joe Biden and recent economic turmoil.
Greitens aligned himself fully with Trump during his campaign for the Senate, including repeating Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud tainting the 2020 presidential election. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, joined Greitens’ campaign as a national co-chair .
But the former president ultimately did not give Greitens a full endorsement. Rather, he strangely endorsed “Eric” in the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where two of the top candidates are named Eric.
“I believe the great people of Missouri will make up their own minds on this,” Trump said in a social media post ahead of the primary.
Both Greitens and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt touted Trump’s statement as if it were a personal endorsement.
The RealClearPolitics polling average showed Greitens has a narrower lead over the top Democratic candidate than either of his two biggest rivals in the GOP primary.
After Sheena Greitens filed court documents in March alleging that Eric Greitens abused her and their young son while they were married, many top Republicans called on Greitens to step down.
“If you hit a woman or a child, you belong in handcuffs, not in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who investigated Greitens when he was Missouri’s attorney general.
Blunt himself said Greitens “should not be running for Senate” if Sheena Greitens’ allegations are true.
Correction: This article has been updated to correct Eric Schmidt’s photo.
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