Schmitt Leads by Double Digits in Missouri Senate Race: Poll

Sen. Eric Schmitt, left, talks to reporters with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in Washington in an April 26, 2022, file image. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is now leading Democratic nominee Trudy Busch Valentine by double digits in the Senate race as midterms are less than one week away, recent polling shows.

According to a survey by Emerson College Polling and The Hill released on Nov. 1, 51 percent of potential voters favored Schmitt while 39 percent backed Busch Valentine, with 6 percent staying undecided.

The latest poll also showed Schmitt leading in terms of favorability: 54 percent of interviewees held favorable views of the Republican candidate, while 37 percent showed negative perceptions of him.

Voters are evenly split on Busch Valentine, with 42 percent of respondents having favorable views of her while the same percent expressed the opposite.

Nine percent of people were unsure or had never heard of Schmitt, compared to 1 percent who had never heard of Busch Valentine, a nurse and member of the Anheuser-Busch family that founded America’s largest brewery.

The survey was conducted on 1,000 potential voters from Oct. 26 to 28. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The two candidates are bidding to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.

Other polls also showed the attorney general in a comfortable lead over his opponent. Polling aggregator RealClear Politics indicated Schmitt ahead of Busch Valentine by 10.3 points.

On Nov. 1, the Republican candidate put out a video ad saying that his opponent “would be a rubber stamp for Biden’s agenda.”

He committed to cutting taxes and fighting to lower inflation for the benefit of Missourians.

Schmitt’s campaign theme appears to align with most Missourians’ view of the current administration’s policies: 60 percent of Missouri voters said they disapprove of the job President Joe Biden was offering, while only 35 percent said they approve, according to The Hill survey.

Schmitt recently received an official endorsement from former President Donald Trump. On Oct 25, Trump released a video in support of the Missouri attorney general in the Senate race.

Trump, speaking to Missourians, said that Schmitt will work to “protect your border, … lower your taxes, protect you from crime, and also from inflation.”

Voters first elected Schmitt to the state Senate in 2008 to represent a suburban St. Louis district. He was elected state treasurer in 2016, then took over as the state attorney general after Josh Hawley vacated the seat to join the U.S. Senate in 2019. He won another term as attorney general in 2020.

As attorney general, Schmitt joined the Trump-backed Texas Supreme Court case challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court refused to take up the case. He also sued the Chinese Communist Party on April 21, 2020, alleging that it abetted the spread of COVID-19, which originated from the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Schmitt, along with another Republican attorney general, sued the Biden administration earlier this year, alleging the U.S. government induced censorship of state officials and others on social media. The lawsuit was brought against 67 officials or agencies, who are accused of violating plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by participating in a “censorship enterprise” by pressuring Big Tech firms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter to take action against users offering alleged misinformation.

On Oct. 21, a federal court ordered Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and Biden’s chief medical adviser, and other top officials to testify under oath at depositions in the case.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Busch Valentine’s campaign for comment.

Ivan Pentchoukov and Zachary Steiber contributed to this report.