Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) is set to campaign for former Missouri governor and Senate candidate Eric Greitens on Saturday.
An invitation tweeted out by Greitens on Wednesday bills the event at the Once Upon a Time Ranch in Robertsville, Mo., as a “grassroots rally” featuring Giuliani, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik and Veterans for Trump co-chair Jessie Jane Duff.
Greitens is up against a crowded field of candidates for the Republican nomination to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) in 2022. Other top contenders include Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.).
Several other Republicans, including Reps. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Billy Long (R-Mo.), are said to be eyeing the Senate nomination as well.
Once seen as a rising star in the GOP, Greitens political career was upended in 2018, when he resigned in the face of mounting scandals.
But despite concerns among many Republicans that Greitens’s candidacy could be a liability for the GOP, he’s managed to score endorsements from some key figures in former President Trump’s orbit, including Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Trump campaign official and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., is serving as national chair for Greitens’s Senate bid.
By tying himself to Trump and those close to him, Greitens is hoping to capitalize on the former president’s deep influence and popularity among Republican voters.
A former swing state, Missouri has lurched to the right over the years. Missouri voters ousted former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in 2018 in favor of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a conservative firebrand and ally of Trump. And the former president himself carried Missouri in the 2020 election by more than 15 points.
Still, half-a-dozen Democrats have lined up so far to replace Blunt, and party leaders believe that they have a shot at capturing his Senate seat next year, especially if Republicans nominate Greitens, whom Democrats see as politically damaged from his 2018 resignation.