Mike Kehoe became Missouri’s 58th governor on Monday, pledging to make public safety and economic development top priorities of his administration.
The Republican chief executive is hoping to allay infighting within his party that’s become more commonplace as Missouri cements itself as a GOP-dominated state.
Kehoe, who served as Missouri’s lieutenant governor and as a state senator, took the oath of office around noon. Speaking before hundreds of people gathered on the front lawn of the Capitol in freezing conditions, Kehoe touched on his unlikely journey from north St. Louis to the top office in the state.
“My life — growing up in the inner city, moving to a small town, building businesses, and operating a ranch — these experiences have taught me one thing: Missourians are more alike than we are different,” Kehoe said. “All of us want to feel safe in our homes and in our neighborhoods. We want our kids to get a quality education. We want to work hard to support our families.”
Most of Missouri’s other statewide officials also took their oath of office on Monday. That includes Attorney General Andrew Bailey and state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who won full four-year terms after being appointed to their posts in 2022, as well as Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and Lt. Gov. David Wasinger.
Kehoe, Bailey, Malek, Hoskins and Wasinger are all Republicans. Democrats have not won a statewide race since 2018, when then-state Auditor Nicole Galloway won a full four-year term over GOP challenger Saundra McDowell.
“The world around us has grown more divided and more cynical. For too many people, hard work has been replaced by handouts,” Kehoe said. “The power of prayer is mocked. The contest of ideas is no longer a matter of right versus wrong, but of good versus evil. Political opponents cast each other as traitors and criminals.
“I reject this,” he added. “I believe we can work together without sacrificing our core beliefs.”
Policy goals
Kehoe made public safety and economic development key priorities of his gubernatorial bid. He supports having a state-appointed board oversee the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Shortly after being sworn in, Kehoe signed a number of executive orders aimed at combating crime. Several deal with illegal immigration, including one allowing the Missouri Highway Patrol to designate certain officers to undergo training on federal immigration laws.
And he’s promised to be “at the table” for negotiations to prevent the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals from bolting to Kansas for new stadiums.
“Make no mistake about it: Accomplishing these goals will not be easy,” Kehoe said. “We will face entrenched special interests, a fear of change, and a culture that says we should keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. But Missourians didn’t send us here to do what’s comfortable. They expect results. They deserve results. With my administration, they will get results. This is my promise to you: I will talk to anyone, work with anyone, and root for anyone who has a good idea to make our state safer, stronger and better.”
A winding road to the governorship
Raised in the Walnut Park neighborhood of St. Louis, Kehoe’s father abandoned his family when he was 1 — leaving his mother to raise six children. He noted during his speech that he had his late mother’s rosary with him while taking the oath of office.
“I will never forget where I came from — the sixth child of Lorraine Kehoe, a single mom, who often struggled to raise her family in north St. Louis city,” Kehoe said. “My mom wasn’t what some would call highly educated, but she worked hard. She was a very, very wise, and a caring and loving person.”
Kehoe graduated from Chaminade College Preparatory School and eventually went to work for Dave Sinclair, a prominent auto dealer in the St. Louis region. He became a car dealer himself in 1991 and was something of a public figure in mid-Missouri for roughly two decades thanks to his ubiquitous car commercials that proclaimed “Mid-Missouri loves a Mike Kehoe deal.”
In 2005, Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Kehoe to the state Highways and Transportation Commission — which oversaw the Missouri Department of Transportation. He easily won a competitive GOP primary in 2010 for the Missouri Senate and served in that chamber for nearly eight years.
“What I've done my entire adult life is operate and build businesses,” Kehoe said on a 2024 episode of the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air. “Public policy is something I enjoy speaking about for future generations, but I would certainly not consider myself part of the inside.”
During his time in the Senate, Kehoe focused on transportation issues. He faced pushback in his own party for advocating for a sales tax increase for transportation projects, a measure that Missourians soundly defeated at the polls. He became Senate majority leader in 2015 and held that position until Gov. Mike Parson appointed him lieutenant governor in 2018.
Missouri’s lieutenant governorship doesn’t have much power, though he promoted tourism and explored bringing the HyperLoop high-speed transportation system to Missouri during his tenure. He also saw the expansion of some of his duties, most notably having his office placed in charge of the Missouri Arts Council.
Rolling to victory
In some respects, Kehoe wasn’t the odds-on favorite to succeed Parson. Many Missouri political prognosticators contended that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft was in the best position, because of family connections and a more outwardly conservative political philosophy.
But Kehoe outflanked both Ashcroft and former state Sen. Bill Eigel in fundraising and collected a slew of endorsements from law enforcement and agricultural groups. Despite facing negative ads for his voting record as a senator, Kehoe won the GOP primary by about 7 percentage points over Eigel and Ashcroft.
During an interview after he won his primary, Kehoe pointed out that President-elect Donald Trump ended up endorsing him along with Eigel and Ashcroft — which showed that efforts to paint him as insufficiently conservative backfired.
“Trump said: ‘No, Kehoe’s not some crazy liberal,'” Kehoe said in August 2024. “They were essentially saying Donald Trump was wrong. I think that probably didn't work out so well.”
National groups like the Democratic Governors Association declined to invest much money in Democratic nominee Crystal Quade's campaign, and Kehoe defeated her by more than 20 percentage points in November. That was a higher margin of victory than Parson achieved in his 2020 win over state Auditor Nicole Galloway.
Dealing with his right flank?
One of the unanswered questions for Kehoe is how he’ll handle dissension from his own party.
Kehoe often presided over a Missouri Senate bogged down with GOP infighting. While some are optimistic that both new leadership in the Senate and the departure of several rebel GOP senators could ease tensions, others aren’t so sure.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said last week that she expects plenty of internal disagreement among Republicans on how to respond to Amendment 3, which legalized abortion. She alluded to how some GOP lawmakers may not get on board with a potential 2026 ballot item that repeals Amendment 3 but allows for eight to 12 weeks for a woman to get an abortion.
“I just don't believe there's any room for conversation,” Aune said. “And frankly, I'm not certain that the majority party is going to be able to get their ducks in a row and be on the same page about it.”
Kehoe said after his victory in November that he wasn’t specifically sure how the legislature would react to Amendment 3 but was expecting the heavily GOP General Assembly to somehow respond.
Some Democrats are worried that GOP unity could end up being harmful to the St. Louis region.
State Rep. Marty Murray, D-St. Louis, said he’s especially concerned that Kehoe’s support of having a gubernatorial board oversee the police department could be a harbinger for the state to remove more autonomy from the City of St. Louis.
“I view it as the first domino in an overall attempt to take control of St. Louis' ability to govern itself,” Murray said.
