Hawley Secures Win

By
Rachel Stevenson
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Update:

Republican Senator Josh Hawley has defeated Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce in the Missouri Senate race, the Associated Press projects, winning his second six-year term. Hawley’s victory comes as Republicans celebrate a major triumph: Donald Trump has secured the presidency, and with it, the GOP has wrested back control of the Senate after four years in the minority.

With Trump heading back to the White House, the GOP now holds a strong position across both the executive and legislative branches. This control will allow Republicans to significantly impact judicial nominations, policy battles, and legislative direction on everything from the economy to national security.

In this election cycle, the GOP poured resources into candidate recruitment, deploying a robust strategy in key states to flip Senate seats. And it paid off. With a strengthened Senate majority and Trump leading the charge, the Republican Party is set to make its mark on Washington!

As previously reported, Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Kunce just set a new bar for campaign disasters.

It’s hard to imagine a more self-sabotaging event than what went down at his gun range meet-and-greet. Kunce, a Democrat with no real shot at unseating Republican Senator Josh Hawley, managed to turn his campaign into a punchline. And why? Because he left a local TV reporter with shrapnel embedded in his arm. Yes, you read that right—a reporter actually got hit with shrapnel at a candidate’s event, and Kunce didn’t even bother calling the police until the next day.

The whole thing reads like an SNL sketch gone horribly wrong. Kunce, eager to show off his Second Amendment chops, brought the media out to a gun range. But instead of proving his gun-savvy credentials, he ended up showing us just how badly a photo-op can backfire. Apparently, Kunce and his team were firing long guns way too close to the press, with Tannerite—a highly explosive target compound—somehow part of the mix. Tannerite at a public campaign event? It’s a miracle the injuries weren’t worse. Local reporter Ryan Gamboa from KHSB-TV took a fragment to his arm, at first just feeling a “pinch” before he rolled up his sleeve and found his arm covered in blood.

And here’s where it goes from bad to worse. Instead of calling for help or even reporting the incident right away, Kunce left the gun range as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t until the next day that he picked up the phone to report the incident to the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office. Maybe he thought the whole thing would blow over? Did he assume a bloodied reporter at his own event was just going to keep quiet?

Unsurprisingly, this whole episode handed Hawley the perfect ammunition in their recent debate. Hawley wasted no time bringing up the incident, highlighting Kunce’s apparent lack of responsibility and decorum. After all, what kind of candidate holds a public shooting event so poorly managed that it lands a journalist in the ER and then doesn’t even report it? Who does he think he is—a Kennedy? It’s laughable but also disturbing. Kunce’s lack of basic judgment in this situation is staggering.

The police report, obtained by the New York Post, paints a pretty embarrassing picture. Gamboa didn’t even realize he’d been shot right away—he felt a pinch, then noticed his sleeve was soaked in blood. It wasn’t until later that Kunce’s campaign even acknowledged what had happened, and by that time, it was too late to undo the PR disaster.

If Kunce was hoping to make himself a credible threat to Hawley, he missed his mark by a mile. Instead, he’s given voters a vivid example of his apparent recklessness and lack of foresight. Handling firearms is serious business, and anyone wanting to score points with Second Amendment voters should know that safety comes first—always. But Kunce managed to turn this event into a display of everything not to do. Hawley’s team must be laughing all the way to the polls, given that Kunce has turned himself into a running joke.

So now Kunce’s campaign has to deal not only with a challenging opponent but also with the fallout from an incident that never should have happened. And with Hawley zeroing in on the incident as proof of Kunce’s incompetence, it’s hard to see how he recovers. Missouri voters want responsible leaders—not ones who play fast and loose with safety and then try to dodge the consequences. If Kunce’s mishandling of this event is any indication, Hawley’s seat is as secure as ever.

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