A new moral compass that voters adhere to does not provide for them to care about the latest news that has emerged about former Missouri Gov. Eric Greiten’s child custody dispute, according to a St. Louis University professor of political science.
“These kinds of accusations have become normalized to the point where people just expect it and therefore the public becomes insensitive to it,” said professor Kenneth Warren. “It doesn’t shift their vote. They don’t care about it and they also think that it doesn't have much to do with politics.”
Greitens, who is vying for a U.S. Senate seat, allegedly abused his ex-wife and children as stated in an affidavit, according to media reports.
“Greitens could still go on to win the Senate because the state has become so Republican,” Warren told the St. Louis Record.
However, Greitens has a formidable foe in Attorney General Eric Schmitt who is campaigning for the same Senate seat.
“Eric Schmitt has a better chance than Greitens in the general election but Greitens has a better chance to win the primary,” Warren said. “Both Greitens and Schmitt are doing quite well within their party space but Greitens is just doing better. Among the general electorate, both Schmitt and Greitens are criticized for their behavior.”
The primary is set for August 2 while the general election will take place on November 8.
As previously reported, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Schmitt filed more than 40 lawsuits against school districts statewide over mandates requiring students to wear masks.
“He’s playing to his base but he's acting like a demagogue,” Warren said. “A demagogue is a person who knows better and plays the people for political gain, but Schmitt hasn't been compromised by the kind of scandals that Eric Greitens has.”
It was widely reported in 2018 that after being accused of sexually assaulting a mistress and violating campaign finance rules, Greitens resigned as governor.
“The sex scandal was far worse than what's alleged in the child custody affidavit and the voters still were willing to support him over Eric Schmitt in the primary, not in the general election, however,” Warren said. “The last poll that came out right before this affidavit broke showed Eric Greitens up by 8% in the primary. That shows there’s a new moral code out there and many people don't seem to care about any of that stuff.”