
Lucas Kunce, left, and Josh Hawley, right
JEFFERSON CITY — As the campaign for U.S. Senate entered its final full week, Democrat Lucas Kunce on Monday blasted U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s frequent use of private flights.
The Republican incumbent, meanwhile, roasted Kunce for slightly injuring a reporter at a campaign stop last week. And the Republican incumbent’s campaign continued to hammer Kunce for not backing a candidate in the presidential race.
Attacks from both sides will help set the stage for the Senate contest’s only televised debate — scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday — to air on Missouri’s Nexstar stations, which include KTVI-TV (Channel 2) and KPLR-TV (Channel 11) in 51.
On the campaign trail, Kunce was set to meet with farmers in the northern Missouri town of Anabel on Monday afternoon. A campaign news release said Kunce would speak about corporate consolidation, right-to-repair and support for family farms. He was set to hold a rally later Monday in Kirksville.
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A get-out-the-vote rally for Kunce was set for Tuesday evening in Columbia.
Hawley’s campaign as of Monday afternoon hadn’t announced any public events for the week ahead. He posted on X Saturday that he spoke at a rally of Christians gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Regarding Hawley’s private flights, Kunce’s campaign noted Hawley this month spent $68,000 for a single day of private air travel on Oct. 10. That’s the same day Hawley traveled to Cottleville, Cape Girardeau and Parkville to campaign with Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker.
The $68,351 total cost for the air travel was about the same as the median annual household income in Missouri of $68,545, according to the .
“‘Posh Josh’ spends what a single Missouri family makes in a year on private flights for one day,” Hannah Edwards, spokesperson for Kunce, said in a news release.
Most of the money on private air travel, $57,383, went to Overland Park, Kansas-based Executive Flight Services.
Kunce’s campaign tied the spending to Hawley’s failure to secure earmarks for Missouri.
“Josh Hawley can’t be bothered to spend time here, he can’t be bothered to invest here — to ‘Posh Josh,’ we’re just flyover country here in Missouri,” Edwards said.
It’s not the first time Kunce has criticized Hawley for spending on private air travel. And Hawley, in the 2018 campaign, blasted then-U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s private flights.
Abigail Jackson, spokesperson for Hawley, brushed off questions about the private airfare and pivoted to criticizing Kunce.
“If only Lucas Kunce would shoot straight with the people of Missouri and tell them if he’s voting for Kamala Harris or not,” Jackson said in a text message.
Hawley, on social media site X, continued to call attention to a photo-op-gone-wrong last week by the Kunce campaign.
Kunce was firing an AR-15 when a metal fragment hit a TV reporter in the arm and the reporter started bleeding. The candidate was firing at steel targets from a distance of about 10-15 yards, the Kansas City Star reported.
Gun safety experts have criticized the range set-up where Kunce and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger were shooting.
“He’s getting desperate — who will Kunce shoot today?” Hawley asked on X.
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R., and Lucas Kunce, the Democrat running for the seat, give their closing statements at a September debate. The Missouri Press Association hosted a debate for U.S. Senate candidates on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, at the History Museum on the Square's Fox Theatre. View the full debate: