Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson plans to seek the Republican nomination to challenge state Auditor Nicole Galloway next year, setting up a potentially big fight for the last remaining statewide office in Jefferson City held by a Democrat.
A Richardson spokesman confirmed last week that the speaker is preparing to run.
Galloway was appointed to the state auditor post in April 2015 by then-Gov. Jay Nixon, also a Democrat, to fill the vacancy left by the suicide of state Auditor Thomas Schweich, a Republican, two months earlier.
Galloway has said she is running for election to a full four-year term next year.
Newly filed campaign finance records show Galloway had $514,749 on hand as of the end of June. Richardson had $294,248.
The auditor’s office is the only state-level statewide post that holds its election concurrent with the national midterm elections. The other offices — governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer — all are elected during presidential election years.
U.S. Sen. Claire Mc-Caskill, D-Mo., also is up for re-election this year and is widely viewed as a top target for national Republicans.
McCaskill ended June with about $5 million in the bank, and she was raising money at a clip of about $1 million per month in the second quarter of the year, according to her FEC reports.
Also revealed in reports released: Two St. Louis-area Republican members of Congress — Blaine Luetkemeyer and Ann Wagner — have amassed multimillion-dollar campaign accounts more than 15 months before the 2018 elections.
Wagner, R-Ballwin, had contemplated a challenge to McCaskill for the U.S. Senate until announcing on July 3 she would not run. She by far outraised the rest of the St. Louis-area delegation over the first six months of the year, taking in more than $1.6 million. She ended June with more than $3.3 million in the bank.
Luetkemeyer’s campaign still carries a personal loan of $1 million from the congressman himself. Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, who is said to be interested in chairing the House Financial Services Committee in future Congresses, raised $606,000 from January to June and had more than $2.2 million in the bank as of July 1, according to his report to the FEC.
Jason Smith, R-Salem, ended the first half of 2017 with about $934,000 in his campaign coffers, after raising about $546,000 in contributions. He represents Texas County.
U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, who announced she would not challenge McCaskill next year, raised about $291,000 from January through June and had just under $457,000 in the bank, according to her FEC report.