Parson calls impeachment a ‘scam.’ Galloway says he’s trying to distract from his record
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson wants voters to know he stands with President Donald Trump, and is making his support of the embattled chief executive a key piece of his 2020 campaign.
State Auditor Nicole Galloway, Parson’s likely Democratic rival in 2020, wants no part of any debate about the president. She said Parson wants the race to be about Trump only to avoid having to defend his own record.
That dynamic was on full display this week, after the U.S. House voted Wednesday to impeach the president for abuse-of-power and obstruction-of-Congress.
Parson, a Republican, went on Twitter to decry the impeachment process, calling it a “scam” and declaring that Democrats “haven’t moved past Republican’s HISTORIC victory in 2016 and can’t beat our president at the ballot box in 2020.”
Missouri Republicans quickly followed Parson’s lead, publicly goading Galloway to make it clear whether she supports impeachment.
“It’s time for liberal Nicole to stop hiding from Missourians,” said Jean Evans, executive director of the Missouri GOP.
Galloway’s campaign said Thursday that the auditor has no intention of weighing in on impeachment.
Eric Slusher, Galloway’s spokesman, said the GOP is trying to “nationalize the race on issues that a governor has nothing to do with” in order to distract voters from Parson’s “corruption and utter failure to deliver for working families.”
Galloway’s opinion “carries no more weight nor any more relevance than any other Missourian worried about how they’re going to afford their prescriptions, or if their kids are safe in the neighborhood,” Slusher said. “Not a single voter who isn’t a member of the press or a GOP operative has directly asked her for her opinion on this.”
Parson’s enthusiasm for Trump and Galloway’s reticence to engage in the impeachment debate isn’t surprising, given Trump’s 19 percentage point victory in Missouri in 2016.
But as Trump runs for a second term, his potential impact on Missouri’s gubernatorial race remains unclear.
His 19-point win in 2016 translated into just a slender three-point re-election margin for Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and six points for former Republican Gov. Eric Greitens.
And according to polling from the news site Morning Consult, Trump’s net approval in Missouri has decreased by 16 percentage points since taking office.
When he was sworn into office in January 2017, Morning Consult found that 53 percent of Missourians approved of the job Trump was doing and 34 percent disapproved. Their latest poll, conducted last month, found 50 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved.
