Mike Kehoe Wins GOP Primary Race for Missouri Governor

Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe on Tuesday emerged as the victor in the crowded GOP primary for governor.

Kehoe along with two other front-runners, state Sen. Bill Eigel and Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, made headlines last week after they received a crucial endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

“They are MAGA and America First all the way,” Trump posted on his conservative social media platform Truth Social.

Kehoe has generally supported bans on gender-affirming care for minors and efforts to restrict transgender girls from participating in sports. But a decade ago he voted in favor of adding anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians into state law. If elected as governor, however, Kehoe could help push forward even more anti-LGBTQ legislation from the Republican-led legislature.

Missouri has already enacted several anti-LGBTQ policies and has had a Republican supermajority in all of its statewide elected offices since 2022.

Last year, the now-outgoing GOP Gov. Mike Parsons signed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a law barring trans women and girls from playing on female sports teams.

The state’s incumbent attorney general, Andrew Bailey (R), also faced scrutiny for launching an investigation into the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital on the heels of testimony by a former employee who accused the center of malpractice. Bailey tried to obtain private patient medical records as well as information on therapists and social workers across the state who worked with trans youth.

The Show Me state has not had a Democratic governor since 2017. Trump won the state with more than 56% of the vote in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.