Missouri independent in senate race uses baseball games to prove a point

MISSOURI – One Missouri candidate for the U.S. Senate has started something he calls the “United Seats of America” as part of an effort to launch a new independent political party, simply named “The Better Party.”

When you hear about Missouri’s U.S. Senate campaign, you hear about a two-way race:  incumbent Republican Josh Hawley and Democrat challenger Lucas Kunce. Independent candidate Jared Young, a former Washington, D.C., corporate attorney and Joplin businessman, says it is a three-way race now. He’s starting to raise eyebrows.

In the United Seats of America, Young welcomed a volunteer from the Democratic and Republican parties to sit side-by-side behind home plate at a Cardinals game and a Royals game to prove a point.

“What happened was exactly what we thought would happen,” Young said. “They walked away knowing, ‘Hey, this person thinks about politics completely differently from me, but we can still be friends.’ That’s exactly what we’re out to prove.”

Young does not attack his opponents in campaign videos or interviews.

When Kunce and Hawley accused each other of dodging debates in a media spectacle at the Missouri State Fair last week, Young was there but avoided the fracas.

“We’re all so exhausted by the state of our politics,” he told FOX 2. “I think people are longing for someone who can actually sit down and not just hurl mud, but instead actually talk productively about issues and work to solve those issues… (one) huge example of that is immigration. Most people agree on two things: we need a secure border and we need legal immigrants. They are an incredibly important part of our economy and an incredibly important part of our culture.”

He describes himself as a moderate conservative. He supports abortion rights up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, not the near-six-month (24 to 25 weeks) standard that is proposed in an amendment Missouri voters will see on their November ballots.

“That 18-to-19-week ultrasound where we go in and find a gender (of the fetus), to me at that point, that looks very much like a human being. So, a 24-to-25-week abortion, I can’t get comfortable with that,” the 38-year-old father of six said.

When it comes to campaign financing, Young is not in the same ballpark as the others. The last Federal Election Commission campaign finance report in July showed his campaign raising about $930,000 total, more than half being his own money, with only about $465,000 cash on hand.

Compare that to about $22.5 million total for Hawley in the campaign cycle, with about $5.8 million on hand. The numbers for the Kunce campaign were $11.2 million total with about $4.2 million on hand.

Still, Young says he has a path to victory, with his polling showing more voters consider themselves independent than Republicans or Democrats in Missouri, and 70% of them are open to voting for an independent candidate in this race.

“There’s a path for a moderate conservative like me to win this seat. There is no path for a Democrat to win in Missouri right now,” he said. “I am a viable, competent option for them to look at. The more people see that, the more they’re getting excited about it and we’re picking up traction.”

A mini-documentary on the United Seats of America is expected to be out by the end of the month.

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