A former Mizzou football captain and state lawmaker from Marshall has won a hotly-contested GOP primary for a state Senate seat that includes mid-Missouri’s Cooper, Howard and Saline counties.
Boonville and Fayette are in the senatorial district. State Rep. Kurtis Gregory (R-Marshall) beats State Rep. Doug Richey (R-Excelsior Springs) by a vote of 14,940 to 11,442. That’s a margin of 56 to 43 percent.
Representative Gregory chairs the Missouri House Rules Regulatory Overnight Committee, and led the successful bipartisan efforts to pass name, image and likeness (NIL) legislation at the Missouri Capitol.
Representative Gregory tells 939 the Eagle that voters are also concerned about illegal immigration.
Representative Richey made a campaign issue of Gregory’s vote for the gas tax. But Representative Gregory says voters in his rural district wanted something done with unsafe roads and told him about it when he first ran in 2020. Gregory notes the gas tax is the primary funding source for Missouri roads and bridges:
“For instance, we had a bridge in Saline County that just got replaced. It had holes in the deck, there was a steel plate on it. It was a still a one-lane bridge on one of our rural-lettered routes. And that’s what people were talking about and concerned with,” Representative Gregory told 939 the Eagle on Friday.
Representative Gregory also says voters in Clay county and elsewhere are worried about the Chiefs and Royals possibly moving, citing comments he heard from numerous voters while going door-to-door. Lawmakers in both parties in Kansas have been working to try to lure the Chiefs and possibly the Royals to the Sunflower state.
Representative Gregory will face Liberty Democrat Jim Bates in November.
