Chris Stigall wins Republican primary for Missouri’s 6th Congressional District

Conservative talk radio host Chris Stigall triumphed in a five-way Republican primary for Missouri’s 6th Congressional district on Tuesday.

Stigall received 44% of the vote, besting his nearest rival, Kanas City Council member Nathan Willett, by 12 percentage points.

The four-and-a-half month campaign to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Sam Graves has brought Stigall throughout Missouri’s largest congressional district, traveling over 14,000 miles to meet voters in the district’s 33 counties, his campaign told The Independent. During this time, he has spoken at five candidate forums and attended 256 events, from casual meet-and-greets to handing out candy at small-town parades.

But the race was not tranquil. 

From the beginning, Stigall and Willett pilloried each other with negative attacks.

When Graves announced his retirement March 27, less than a week from the candidate-filing deadline, Stigall stepped into the race that day. Graves endorsed him on the last day of candidate filing, posting on social media that he was “proud to pass the torch to the next generation.”

Willett shot back at the time in a social media post alleging that Graves and his “anti-Trump” political consultant Jeff Roe were trying to “hand-pick the next person to come after him for the next 26 years.”

Throughout the campaign, a political action committee dubbed Come And Take It PAC blasted Willett as “woke” and questioned his loyalty to President Donald Trump, spending over $1 million in three months.

Come and Take it PAC has strong ties to Roe. The committee’s treasurer Thomas Datwyler works for Roe’s political consulting firm Axiom Strategies — which is also running Stigall’s campaign.

The committee was formed in December, months before Stigall said he considered running. In an episode of his podcast The Chris Stigall Show released on May 28, Stigall said he didn’t have any involvement with the committee.

During that episode, which was part of a series following his campaign, he swore he wouldn’t engage in “negative attacks.”

“I don’t want a nickel that anyone spends on this campaign to be spent attacking anyone,” he said. “I want it used to tell our story.”

He kept that promise until the week prior to the primary. On July 27, he began to publish a series of critiques of Willet, like his endorsement and $5,000 donation from the Missouri AFL-CIO laborers union.

“Nate says he’s a Republican,” the post says, “but has been endorsed and bankrolled by anti-Trump union AFL-CIO.”

Support for Trump has been a key part of Stigall’s platform and a motivator for him to enter the race.

“I’m extraordinarily supportive of the president’s agenda, and I believe that we’re going through some fundamental foundational generational changes,” he told The Independent in June, adding, “The president needs backup in Congress right now.”

Early in the campaign, Stigall told voters he was “eager to work to earn (Trump’s) endorsement,” saying he believed it would come.

But when Trump posted his endorsements on social media Monday, Stigall’s name was missing as the president endorsed candidates in each of Missouri’s Congressional districts — except for the sixth and the first, the state’s bluest district. 

Stigall does not intend to turn his congressional bid into a career in politics, though he hasn’t specified just how many years he could spend in D.C. apart from promising it will be shorter than Graves’s stint.

“Will I do it for 26 years? No, I will not. I can promise you that,” he said. “I’ll do it for a time, and I hope I’m effective.”

Stigall’s career in radio and communications will allow him to connect to Missourians when away, he said, but he doesn’t intend to stay too far. He has repeatedly promised to visit each of the district’s counties at least twice a year.

“That is my pledge,” he recently replied in a Facebook comment. “Hold me to it or throw me out.”

This story will be updated.