State Auditor Nicole Galloway has never met Sheryl Crow — but that didn’t stop Missouri Republicans from accusing Galloway of being “cozy” with the pop star in a recent attack ad designed to derail her campaign for governor.
Asked about the ad on Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Galloway laughed.
“It is so funny to me how far the governor and his allies will go to stretch the truth or to completely mislead the public, or in this case, to completely make things up,” she said. “That’s a pretty bizarre attack.”
Galloway joined the show two weeks before Election Day to make her final case against Gov. Mike Parson. In the past few weeks, St. Louis on the Air producers reached out to Parson four times seeking an on-air interview. His campaign aides did not respond to any of those requests. They also stopped responding to inquiries about participating in a debate that was to be held by St. Louis Public Radio, the Nine Network and KSDK Five on Your Side.
Previously Missouri’s lieutenant governor, Parson inherited the top job in 2018 when the governor chosen by voters, Eric Greitens, resigned as part of a deal to make the criminal charges against him go away. Now, with Missouri battling both soaring coronavirus case counts and tough economic conditions, Galloway hopes to convince voters that the man who stepped in to take Greitens’ job isn’t up to the challenge.
Parson’s strategy seems to be attempting to tar Galloway with far-left positions, or at least associations. During their only debate to date, he accused her of seeking to defund the police, an idea she repudiated (and rejected again on Tuesday’s program). Hence the injection of Sheryl Crow into the governor’s race: The Missouri native had previously said she’s “losing faith” in Trump voters, which is apparently enough to make her Exhibit A in the case against Galloway.
Galloway, though, said she doesn’t share Crow’s sentiment. “I speak with Trump/Galloway voters all of the time,” she said. “These are folks who know that the system is broken, the system is rigged, and it’s not working for them. I have seen that firsthand as state auditor.”
Galloway said she believes her campaign is within striking distance, citing a Democratic-funded poll that shows her within the margin of error.
If elected, she would be Missouri’s first female governor, putting the state just 96 years behind Wyoming, which became the first state to elect a woman governor in 1924.
But while Galloway has tweeted that she looks forward to notching that historic first, she joked on air that her gender wouldn’t be the only “first” she brings to the governor’s mansion: “I would be the first certified fraud examiner to be governor. Maybe I should tweet that as well.”
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill and Lara Hamdan. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
