By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft was a prominent Republican who did not seek his party’s nomination for United States Senate.
Ashcroft says there’s a simple reason why.
“The ultimate reason was I prayed about it and I didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” Ashcroft tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “But, as a pretty close second, I don’t want to go to Washington, D.C.”
Ashcroft, the son of John Ashcroft – the former governor and US Attorney General – says he wants to stay in Missouri and make a difference in Missouri.
“It seems to me that Washington, D.C. is a place where you go to be on TV, not to get things done,” Ashcroft says. “And, I don’t want to raise my kids in Washington, D.C.”
Ashcroft, first elected as Secretary of State in 2016, says he hasn’t decided on whether he will run for governor. Ashcroft is not seeking another term as Secretary of State.
“I love the ability that I’ve been given to serve the people of this state. I’m not going to run for re-election. I think it’s appropriate to get new blood. If you stay in one seat too long you start to think that it’s your seat as opposed to the people’s seat,” Ashcroft says. “I do hope that the people will allow me to serve in some capacity, but now’s not the time to talk about that.”
Whether Ashcroft runs for governor will depend on a number of factors.
“I think that if I’m going to run for an office, I have to believe that I bring something to the race that someone else doesn’t,” Ashcroft says. “When I was looking at running for Secretary of State, there was no one that was running that I felt I could support. It also helped when I looked at the potential of running for U.S. Senate, I knew there were people that would run if I didn’t that I could support.”
Voters elected Ashcroft as Missouri’s 40th Secretary of State in 2016 and re-elected him in 2020.
Ashcroft is one of the names that surfaces on potential successors to Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican who says he will not run for another term.