CUBA, Mo. — Mike Kehoe wanted to make one thing clear to the few dozen supporters of his gubernatorial campaign who gathered at Cowtown USA earlier this month.
“I don’t shout or make noise about politics,” said Kehoe, the Missouri lieutenant governor. “I’m fighting the ‘burn it all’ type of people. I’m not a burn it all type of guy.”
The winner of the Aug. 6 primary will be the overwhelming favorite heading into the fall in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2018. And the latest polls in the race have Kehoe at or near the top, thanks in part to the huge campaign coffers he’s built to push his message to the airwaves and his attacks on his rivals in the nomination, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel.
Kehoe knows his style is a bit of an anachronism in modern politics, especially in a race where his opponents have blasted him with derogatory names like “RINO,” “Tax Increase Mike” and “Public Notice Kehoe.”
But he doesn’t think such a campaign would be successful in Missouri.
“Missouri people are a little tired of hate politics,” Kehoe told The Independent in an interview at his campaign headquarters.
“If God has given me anything, it’s that I can get along with people even if they don’t agree with me,” he said. “At the end of the conversation, we may still not agree, but that doesn’t make them my enemy. Looking out on the ground, I don’t think there are many others who govern in that way.”
To his supporters, that’s exactly what Missouri needs.
“He’s a conservative who fights for his values,” said Charlie Crews, who served as farm commissioner under former Gov. John Ashcroft (Jay Ashcroft’s father) and as Missouri’s farm commissioner. “And he can get things done. I’ve seen Mike Kehoe in action. He’s willing to talk to anybody, he’s willing to have a logical discussion with anybody.”
Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe (center) and his wife, Claudia, talk with Rick Damaus outside Damaus’ business, known as “Cowtown USA,” in Cuba, Missouri, on July 11 (campaign photo).
Kehoe was the youngest of six children raised in St. Louis by a single mother who worked three jobs to support the family, and as an adult, Kehoe got a job washing cars at a local car dealership.
Once he had saved up enough capital, he bought a struggling ambulance manufacturer and doubled its size over the next five years, making it one of the largest ambulance manufacturers in the world.
At age 30, he bought a Ford dealership in Jefferson City and put down roots in the community, building the business over the next 20 years before selling the dealership in 2011.
“I was born and raised in extreme poverty, and as my mother would say, we couldn’t afford soil,” Kehoe said. “Growing up poor doesn’t necessarily give you the qualities to be a good governor. Starting and running a business doesn’t necessarily make you a good governor. But it does give you perspective. I see things differently.”
He first entered politics when former Gov. Matt Blunt appointed him to the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, which led to him running for and winning election to the state Senate in 2010. He eventually rose to become Senate Majority Leader, and when Mike Parson took office in 2018 following the resignation of Eric Greitens, Parson appointed Kehoe as lieutenant governor.
Kehoe won a full term as lieutenant governor in 2020.
Ahead of the Aug. 6 primary, The Independent asked Kehoe a series of questions, centered on “What would happen to Missouri if he were governor?” Here are Kehoe’s answers:
Crime Prevention
If Kehoe becomes Missouri’s next governor, his focus will be on crime.
“Once I take my hands off the Bible, the first thing I do is execute my crime plan for day one,” Kehoe said.
“Unless we control crime, other priorities don’t matter,” he said.
The 2023 crime report released by the mayor’s office earlier this year showed St. Louis’ overall crime trends are at their lowest in the past decade, but the encouraging numbers come after years in which the city had one of the highest murder rates in the country.
Kansas City saw 185 homicides in 2023, making it the city’s deadliest year on record, according to data maintained by the Kansas City Star. Statewide, both violent and property crimes decreased in 2023 compared to 2022, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol statistics.
Kehoe said law enforcement agencies at all levels, including local police, sheriff’s offices and highway patrols, are struggling to recruit and retain employees, and the state can play a role in turning that around, including by allocating funds directly to improve salaries.
“Law enforcement officers are woefully underpaid for the risks they take on for their communities,” he said, “and I want to make Missouri the most law enforcement friendly state in the union.”
Other details of the crime-fighting plan are in flux, but Kehoe said he will bring together local leaders and law enforcement groups to develop a plan to tackle violent crime in Missouri.
“Without a safe community, none of this matters,” he said. “Businesses aren’t going to expand or relocate here if they see us on the front page of The New York Times every week. If people don’t feel safe, they’re not going to want to continue living here.”
Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe answered questions on February 27 before filing his candidacy for gubernatorial election. (Annelyse Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)
Part of Kehoe’s message on crime has to do with border security, specifically the idea that Chinese-made fentanyl is making its way into the country through Mexico and ravaging Missouri communities.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported that there were more than 2,000 drug-related overdose deaths in the state in 2021, with about 70% of those deaths caused by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among adults ages 18-44 in Missouri.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee reported earlier this year that China is fueling the U.S. fentanyl crisis by directly subsidizing the production of materials that drug traffickers use abroad to make drugs. But a study by the libertarian Cato Institute found that 89% of convicted fentanyl traffickers are U.S. citizens, and 93% of fentanyl seizures occur at legal border crossings, not along illegal migration routes.
One statistic backs up Kehoe’s claim: St. Louis County police say fentanyl was found in more than 1,000 drugs seized between January 2021 and September 2023, many of which were linked to Mexico and China.
“Missouris want to know how to stop this or slow it down,” Kehoe said.
But every mention of China by Kehoe sparks criticism of his 2013 vote as a Missouri senator to lift a ban on foreign ownership of farmland, clearing the way for China’s largest pork producer to buy Smithfield Foods and more than 40,000 acres of Missouri farmland.
This has been a hot topic in Missouri politics and the gubernatorial race, and criticism of Kehoe intensified this week when The Independent reported that his campaign bus was owned by Smithfield’s only Missouri lobbyist.
Kehoe said he doesn’t regret his vote in 2013 because the situation was much different then than it is now, and he now supports reinstating the ban.
“(The vote) took place 11 years ago,” Kehoe said. “Times have changed, so I’m going to move forward with the position that I made very clear that I don’t want the enemies of this country to own anything.”
Tax cuts
Another of Kehoe’s policies as he seeks governor of Missouri is to repeal Missouri’s income tax.
“Since I took office, we’ve lowered the income tax rate from 6 percent to 4.7 percent,” Kehoe said. “I’ve championed a $2.4 billion tax cut since I took office. But now we need to get it to zero. That’s key to our economic development strategy.”
In the fiscal year that ended June 30, personal income taxes accounted for 65% of Missouri’s general revenues.
Kehoe recognizes the state still has to fund essential services, but he doesn’t believe eliminating the income tax would hurt Missouri’s ability to pay.
“If you put real money back in people’s pockets and let them spend it, it will boost the economy,” he argues. “And as the economy grows, so will the budget.”
Kehoe has distinguished himself from Ashcroft and Eigel in his support of economic development incentives to attract and keep businesses in the state, a difference that was on full display earlier this year after Kansas approved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of incentives designed to lure the Chiefs and Royals across the state line from Kansas City.
Ashcroft and Eigel categorically rejected any notion that Missouri should intervene.
It would be foolish to take such a stance, Kehoe said.
“The economic development business is so competitive, so if you want to have zero economic development — nothing in your toolbox — that’s fine,” Kehoe said. “You’re going to get done.”
He said he doesn’t support state funding for building new stadiums, but it doesn’t make sense to not try to keep big employers in the state, even if those employers are sports teams.
“If someone said Joe’s Widget Factory, which has been in Kansas City for 60 years, employed a lot of people and had a huge economic impact on the region, wanted to move to another state, you’d get 800 people to say, ‘Oh, no, this has to stop. We can’t let Joe’s Widget Factory move.’ That’s my argument.”
Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe addresses supporters at Cowtown USA in Cuba, Missouri, on July 11 (Jason Hancock/The Missouri Independent).
During the campaign, Kehoe came under fire for calling for a higher state gas tax to pay for road and bridge repairs, saying Missouri’s roads are crumbling and something needs to be done.
Kehoe said the gas tax — “I call it a user fee, by the way” — is a way to ensure Missouri can pay for infrastructure improvements.
“Governing is not always popular,” he said. “We ranked 49th in road funding. Our farm-to-market roads, so-called letter roads, are in the worst condition they’ve ever been in. This hurts our primary industry, agriculture. We need to make sure we have bridges that can carry school buses, ambulances and families, much less transport the goods in the tractor-trailers that power our economy.”
education
Over the past two years, Missouri lawmakers have created and expanded tax credit scholarship programs to help offset the costs of attending private and religious schools.
Kehoe supports the effort, saying competition is what’s best for public education.
“If parents feel their child isn’t getting an appropriate education in their school district, or the curriculum doesn’t align with their values, they should have the option to consider other school districts,” he said.
“We have about 550 school districts in Missouri,” Kehoe said, “some that are doing great and some that are really struggling. I’m not a reformer that’s going to say, let’s throw away everything that matters and throw away what’s important. Let’s target the best solutions where they’re needed and give people options.”
While some opponents support abolishing the Missouri Department of Education entirely, Kehoe believes the department has a bright future, in part because of the state’s new Education Commissioner, Carla Esslinger.
Eslinger, a former Republican state senator considered friendly to public school advocates, was selected by the State Board of Education to replace Margie Vandeven upon her retirement.
Her teaching experience is extensive, beginning as an elementary school teacher in rural Ozark County schools, serving in administrative roles in several Missouri schools, and serving as Deputy Director for the Office of Educator Quality for three years.
In 2017, then-Governor Eric Greitens pressured the commission to remove Vandeven in hopes of being able to appoint commissioners of his own choosing. Kehoe has no plans to go down that path.
“Carla Esslinger is going to be really special,” he said. “I’m excited to see what Carla brings to this conversation. I’m a big fan of hers, and I honestly can’t believe she said yes. She’s a really good person and I think something great is going to come out of her.”
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