Lucas Kunce

Lucas Kunce (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Missouri. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Biography

Lucas Kunce was born in Missouri. Kunce served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2007 to 2020.^[1]

Elections

2024

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Missouri

The following candidates ran in the general election for U.S. Senate Missouri on November 5, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Josh Hawley (R)	52.8	1,149,665
	Lucas Kunce (D)	44.6	970,058
	W. C. Young (L)	1.2	26,053
	Jared Young (Better Party)	0.7	15,302
	Nathan Kline (G)	0.7	15,216
	Gina Bufe (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	0

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. Source	Total votes: 2,176,294
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Zack Exley (Independent)
Doris Canaday (Socialist Equality Party)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Lucas Kunce defeated Karla May, December Harmon, and Mita Biswas in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 6, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Lucas Kunce	67.6	255,775
	Karla May	23.2	87,908
	December Harmon	7.1	26,804
	Mita Biswas	2.0	7,647

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 378,134
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Wesley Bell (D)
Samuel Rutherford (D)

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Incumbent Josh Hawley advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 6, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Josh Hawley	100.0	607,602

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 607,602
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Christopher Murphy (R)

Libertarian primary election

Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

W. C. Young advanced from the Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 6, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		W. C. Young	100.0	2,437

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,437
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Kunce in this election.

2022

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Missouri

The following candidates ran in the general election for U.S. Senate Missouri on November 8, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Eric Schmitt (R)	55.4	1,146,966
	Trudy Busch Valentine (D)	42.2	872,694
	Jonathan Dine (L)	1.7	34,821
	Paul Venable (Constitution Party)	0.7	14,608
	Nathan Mooney (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	14
	Steve Price (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	9
	Rik Combs (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	6
	Gina Bufe (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	5
	Theodis Brown Sr. (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	4
	David Kirk (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	3
	Martin Lindstedt (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	0

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,069,130
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Nicholas Strauss (Independent)
Ronald Deets (Independent)
John Wood (Independent)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 2, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Trudy Busch Valentine	43.2	158,957
	Lucas Kunce	38.3	141,203
	Spencer Toder	4.7	17,465
	Carla Wright	3.9	14,438
	Gena Ross	2.4	8,749
	Jewel Kelly, Jr.	1.8	6,464
	Lewis Rolen	1.4	5,247
	Pat Kelly	1.4	5,002
	Ronald William Harris	1.1	4,074
	Joshua Shipp	0.9	3,334
	Clarence Taylor	0.9	3,322

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 368,255
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 2, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Eric Schmitt	45.6	299,282
	Vicky Hartzler	22.1	144,903
	Eric Greitens	18.9	124,155
	Billy Long	5.0	32,603
	Mark McCloskey	3.0	19,540
	Dave Schatz	1.1	7,509
	Patrick Lewis	0.9	6,085
	Curtis D. Vaughn	0.5	3,451
	Eric McElroy	0.4	2,805
	Robert Allen	0.3	2,111
	C.W. Gardner	0.3	2,044
	Dave Sims	0.3	1,949
	Bernie Mowinski	0.2	1,602
	Deshon Porter	0.2	1,574
	Darrell Leon McClanahan III	0.2	1,139
	Rickey Joiner	0.2	1,084
	Robert Olson	0.2	1,081
	Dennis Lee Chilton	0.1	755
	Russel Pealer Breyfogle Jr	0.1	685
	Kevin Schepers	0.1	681
	Hartford Tunnell	0.1	637

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 655,675
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Constitution primary election

Constitution primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Paul Venable advanced from the Constitution primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 2, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Paul Venable	100.0	792

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 792
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Libertarian primary election

Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Jonathan Dine advanced from the Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri on August 2, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Jonathan Dine	100.0	2,973

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,973
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Lucas Kunce did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign website

Kunce’s campaign website stated the following:

“	Everyday people should be calling the shots in our country — not giant corporations or the cowards and phonies they bought off in Washington. That’s why I’m running for U.S. Senate: To take power back for working families in Missouri and across America. And make no mistake about it — Missouri is on the frontline of this fight. While our state has been getting stripped for parts, corrupt politicians like Josh Hawley have been attacking workers with schemes like “Right-to-Work” and fighting to block wage increases for Missouri families — all to enrich multinational corporations and mega-donors who bankroll their campaigns. They helped Wall Street financiers sell off our farmland to billionaires in China and Brazil — devastating rural communities and contributing to the closure of 90% of Missouri hog producers in a single generation. One of Missouri’s oldest and largest employers, Anheuser-Busch, was sold to a Belgian conglomerate — costing Missouri more than a thousand jobs. Missouri-based Monsanto, one of the world’s most important agrochemical and biotechnology companies, was sold to Germany — eliminating even more jobs. And as dozens more headquarters have been taken out of state, politicians in power like Josh Hawley were happy to sit back and watch it happen. Manufacturing, agriculture, production — they’re shipping it all away to foreign oligarchs who don’t care about working people in our state. And while Missouri was getting gutted, these same politicians voted time and time again to spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on overseas wars that got their Big Oil friends rich. They even let our adversaries become dominant in renewable energy production — putting the jobs, security, and independence that come with a clean energy future at risk. Our politicians have spent decades sparking phony culture wars to distract and divide our families. They’ve become so obsessed with controlling our lives, they made Missouri the first state in the nation to ban abortion — without exceptions for victims of rape or incest. Our state deserves a Senator who will stand up and fight for it, not run for the exit like Josh Hawley. I’m running for U.S. Senate to be the warrior for working people that Missouri deserves. To fight for our state. And we aren’t fighting the corporate status quo just to make a point. This is a race we can win. Our values have won at the ballot box with wide margins for referendums that go beyond what’s happening nowadays in Washington, or what political elites in Jefferson City are willing to allow. Missouri voters have side-stepped our politicians by voting to increase the minimum wage well above the federal level, expand health care, repeal an anti-worker “Right-to-Work” scheme, legalize weed, and enact more protections against political corruption. But to defeat Josh Hawley, we need to build a record-breaking, people-powered movement. We can stop printing money for Wall Street and start funding our schools enough to get Missouri out of last place for starting teacher pay. We can abolish corporate PACs and demand a government that safeguards our democracy and holds corrupt politicians accountable. We can take back Missouri farmland for Missouri farmers and start manufacturing essential drugs right here in America. We can build an economy that puts American workers and small businesses in charge, not giant corporations and foreign oligarchs — an economy that invests in putting America first in the next generation of energy, semiconductors, and supply chain independence. We can put an end to pointless, trillion-dollar wars and invest in a Marshall Plan for the Midwest — a historic investment in our workers and communities to rebuild our forgotten towns and cities, and to finally start making stuff in America again. We can put everyday Missourians back in charge of their own neighborhoods, workplaces, and bodies. It’s time to take our power back. Let’s get moving. — Lucas Kunce ^[2]	”
—Lucas Kunce’s campaign website (2024)^[3]

2022

Lucas Kunce completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kunce's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Lucas Kunce is a Marine officer, advocate for the middle class, and Democrat running for U.S. Senate. Lucas Kunce grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri. His family struggled living paycheck to paycheck, and when his younger sister was born with a heart condition, the family went bankrupt. They relied on the help of neighbors—oftentimes no better off than his family—to make it through. Through Pell Grants, scholarships, and the kindness of people around town, he went to Yale University and law school at Mizzou, before later joining the Marine Corps.

In Kunce’s 13 years in the Marine Corps, he was deployed as a Team Leader to Iraq, leading Marines on escort missions, convoys, and police combat training programs, and twice to Afghanistan as a Judge Advocate and South Asia Foreign Affairs Officer with Special Operations Task Forces. Following his deployments, Kunce — a Major —served as an International Negotiations Officer in the Pentagon, representing the United States in arms control negotiations with Russia and our allies. Since leaving active duty last fall, Kunce has served as the Director of National Security Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project, a non-profit fighting corporate monopoly power. Kunce, a father of two, lives in Independence, Missouri.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Lucas will fight to break up up massive corporations so that small innovative businesses can rise up in the marketplace. So that fair competition and innovation drive our economy. So that companies are incentivized to spend money on research and development to stay ahead of their competitors, rather than spending it lobbying. We also need to revive our antitrust laws, increase Congressional oversight, and repeal or revise laws like Section 230 that shield these companies so everyday people have the power to compete in our economy, demand fair treatment in the workplace, and hold corporations accountable for abuse.
As Missouri’s next U.S. Senator, Lucas Kunce will fight to completely abolish corporate PACs, ban the family members of U.S. Senators and Representatives from working as lobbyists, and require members of Congress to disclose when legislation has been written by a lobbyist or special interest group. He’ll vote to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect voters from discrimination and undue obstacles to voting.
The day Donald Trump was elected President, Missouri had a Democratic Senator, Governor, and a full set of Democrats in statewide office. Our values have won at the ballot box with wide margins for progressive referendums and go beyond what is possible in Washington — an increased minimum wage, more health care, stronger labor rights, and government reforms. The last time this Senate seat was up, it was decided by just three points — less than 80,000 votes. This is a race we can win.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Under the leadership of politicians like Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley, our country has been sucked dry by massive corporations and career politicians who’ve stripped our communities for parts and left our families struggling and divided.

In 1948, the United States enacted The Marshall Plan, helping Europe rebuild homes, infrastructure, industries, and whole cities after WWII. Now, after 40 years of devastation from unchecked monopoly power, Lucas thinks it’s time to invest here in the heartland, through a Marshall Plan for the Midwest to rebuild forgotten communities, create the next generation of energy jobs, and bring power back to American workers. Instead of spending trillions of dollars on forever wars in the Middle East and printing billions of dollars every month to juice Wall Street, we’ll put our tax dollars into towns and cities here at home.

We’ve been building things right here in Missouri for generations, so Lucas’s plan would put our carpenters, tradespeople, sheet metal workers, laborers, and engineers to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, expanding broadband coverage, and making our homes, businesses, and public buildings energy efficient. At the same time, we’d be investing in job training, local governments, and the factories of the future to create generations of sustainable jobs.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Lucas Kunce campaign contribution history
Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2024*	U.S. Senate Missouri	Lost general	$20,435,267	$20,014,799
2022	U.S. Senate Missouri	Lost primary	$5,735,055	$5,727,773
Grand total			$26,170,322	$25,742,572
Sources: OpenSecrets, Federal Elections Commission *This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

External links

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Candidate

U.S. Senate Missouri

Footnotes

↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on Jun 9, 2021
↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
↑ Lucas Kunce’s campaign website, “Why I'm Running,” accessed July 24, 2024

[show]

Missouri's current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Josh Hawley (R)

Eric Schmitt (R)

Representatives

District 1

Cori Bush (D)

District 2

Ann Wagner (R)

District 3

Blaine Luetkemeyer (R)

District 4

Mark Alford (R)

District 5

Emanuel Cleaver (D)

District 6

Sam Graves (R)

District 7

Eric Burlison (R)

District 8

Jason Smith (R)

Republican Party (8)

Democratic Party (2)

[bio-1] Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on Jun 9, 2021

[quotedisclaimer-2] Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.

[3] Lucas Kunce’s campaign website, “Why I'm Running,” accessed July 24, 2024

[1]

[2]

[3]

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Lucas Kunce

Biography

Elections

2024

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Libertarian primary election

Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Endorsements

2022

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Constitution primary election

Constitution primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Libertarian primary election

Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate Missouri

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Campaign website

2022

Campaign finance summary

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

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