Former GOP auditor candidate files to run against Parson in Missouri governor primary
Saundra McDowell’s unsuccessful run for state auditor in 2018 was defined by lackluster fundraising, eligibility questions and accusations that she exaggerated her resume.
Now, she has filed paperwork to challenge incumbent Missouri Gov. Mike Parson in the 2020 Republican primary.
Filing for the August primary closes at 5 p.m. today . In addition to Parson and McDowell, state Rep. Jim Neely of Cameron and businessman Raleigh Ritter of Seneca are also seeking the GOP nomination.
McDowell, 40, could not be reached for comment.
In 2018, McDowell emerged as the surprise winner of a four-way GOP primary for state auditor. But she was defeated three months later by the incumbent, Democrat Nicole Galloway.
Galloway is the likely Democratic nominee for governor.
McDowell’s campaign website is no longer active, but she regularly posts about politics on social media.
Earlier this month, she seemed to imply that the COVID-19 outbreak was a Democratic plot to hurt the president.
“Dems still say Hillary Clinton won 2016 even (though) Donald Trump won the Electoral College (304 to 227),” she wrote. “Dems impeached Trump (only done 3x now in history) on frivolous grounds. Dems want confused man Joe Biden to be nominee.”
“You think #coronavirus wasn’t planned?”
Saturday, she questioned on Facebook the constitutionality of local stay-at-home orders aimed at fighting COVID-19’s spread.
“If we the people decide we should stay home, we do that,” she wrote. “I hope the people make the right decisions but I don’t agree government should tell them what those decisions are. We the people are smart enough to do what we think is best. I don’t need the government telling me what to do as a civilian.”
During her 2018 campaign, McDowell faced questions about whether she met the residency requirement to run for office in the first place — questions that will likely surface again.
The Missouri Constitution says any candidate for auditor or governor must have been a resident of the state for 10 years at the time of the election.
But McDowell had a Mission, Kan., address in 2013 when she was sued by Nebraska Furniture Inc. for failing to pay $698, plus 18 percent interest, as part of a contract she signed the previous year.
She also faced allegations that she was lying about her time working for the Missouri attorney general’s office’s financial services division.
McDowell repeatedly claimed that she “prosecuted Medicaid fraud” and “led auditors and investigators looking into Medicaid providers who over-billed the system.”
The director of the attorney general’s Medicaid Provider Fraud Unit during the time when McDowell worked for the attorney general’s office told The Star in 2018 that McDowell never worked in the division and didn’t handle any prosecutions.
