Last night, in the Missouri Attorney General Democratic Party primary:

State of Missouri – Primary Election, August 04, 2020
Unofficial Results
as of 8/5/2020 5:49:13 PM

Attorney General 3575 of 3575 Precincts Reported
[….]

Rich Finneran Democratic 271,436 55.405%
Elad Gross Democratic 218,473 44.595%
Party Total: 489,909
[….]

Elad Gross (D) [2020 file photo].

From Elad Gross (D):

Thank You for the Opportunity

This is long, but, if you read until the end, I promise it will be worth it.

I remember touching the imprint of the state seal on my folder on October 4, 2018. I was sitting in a Cole County courtroom listening to Eric Greitens’ lawyer argue about how the public deserved no transparency, how our government can so easily be broken, and how it should stay that way.

I got that folder working as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri. It witnessed some of the proudest moments of my career, many of which were prefaced with, “Your Honor, I am here on behalf of the People of Missouri.”

I decided in that courtroom to take a shot, to run for Attorney General, to try to fix the brokenness so many of us live every day. And you came with me.

One of the first invitations I got was from Stoddard County. For the next two years, I would travel to 567 more events all over our state and spend a lot more time in courtrooms trying to hold our government accountable.

In the middle of it all, one of our staff members, Darlisa, asked me a question. “What is your number one priority right now? I mean, winning the election….”

“No. I’m not running to win. I’m running to make Missouri better. And when we forget that, whatever the outcome, we’ve already lost.”

You believed that too.

We had a great time. We made campaigning fun. We showed Missouri what this can be, how it can be so meaningful, how it can be real.

That’s how we broke down so many divisions in our state. We had Republicans crossing over to vote Democratic. We had both young and old voting for the first time. We had at least one woman asking for the “ballot with Elad on it.” I know because they are still texting me!!! (It’s OK. You can still text!)

I know some folks will look at this campaign and try to draw conclusions about where our electoral focus should be in Missouri. I ask you not to fall for that trap. Missouri is a special place. We’re in this broken spot because we’ve ignored so many folks who don’t have money or power. Building trust doesn’t happen overnight, especially after years of breaking it. Visit with people. Listen to them. Come with patience and compassion and understanding. And don’t give up.

Almost 200,000 Missourians voted for the kid with a funny sounding name. Just not enough people saw what we built by 7 PM on August 4.

These last two years have meant the world to me. We made Missouri better. And I know we’re not done yet.

On November 3, I’ll be voting for Rich Finneran to be Missouri’s next Attorney General. Until then, I’ll be helping him get there. I met Rich years ago, and, before and even during all of this, I kept volunteering to guest judge his appellate advocacy classes he taught at Wash U. Rich’s students love him for a reason. I hope you get to know him too because he is going to need all the help he can get in the general election. We need a new Attorney General very badly.

I also want you to find a local candidate, someone running for state representative or state senate or county commissioner or school board. I want you to contact them. I want you to ask them why they’re running. And if you like the answer, ask them how you can help. Goodness knows we need you.

Finally, and most importantly, I want you to know who helped pull this all together.

Jessica Lambrecht was the firebrand manager of this campaign. I don’t know what Freddy Doss’s official position was because he would do whatever it took on any given day. I’ve know these two for a very long time. This campaign meant so much to so many of you because it was run by some of the best friends anyone could ask for. They built the most active, responsive, dedicated campaign Missouri has seen in a long time. And they helped other campaigns too all over our state. You need to call them.

Daniel Williams came on board a little later, but he made up for lost time. He responded to an email. Little did he know he would become the volunteer manager for a statewide campaign with A LOT of amazing volunteers. He ran a program that reached out to many hundreds of thousands of people in Missouri. He also adopted his new dog Barney during this campaign, locking up the canine vote at a crucial time. There are few people I’ve met anywhere who work harder than Daniel. Call him too.

Our interns were phenomenal. We wanted this campaign to teach young folks how to be more civically engaged. I asked our interns to lead on making policy, to creating volunteer plans, to taking ownership of our state. In the years to come, you’ll see them fighting in every corner of Missouri.

I realized we weren’t going to pull it off early last night. I wanted to spend the time with them, especially at the moment when the press would eventually call it. Maybe it was the teacher in me. I couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff.

My wife, Tasha, and my mom, Margalit, were always ready to tell me what to do. They were usually right. And now they both have that in writing, along with more free time for my manual labor at two locations in St. Louis City, imagine that.

Our amazing volunteers truly were that. They would walk door-to-door days after surgery, text half the state on their own, call and listen patiently for a chance to get a voter, and do everything humanly possible to improve our state. I’d do anything for them.

To all of our record-number of donors, to all of the folks who endorsed this campaign, to everyone who shared my name with a friend, thank you for believing in me.

There’s nothing I’ll be able to do in my life to repay you all for what you’ve done for me and for our state. You gave your time, your money, your energy. I promise you I’ll keep fighting to make your dedication worthwhile.

Missouri, thank you. I love you…

[….]

.

Class.

Elad Gross (D), candidate for Attorney General, speaking in Sedalia, Missouri on January 25, 2020.

Lindsey Simmons, a Democratic Party candidate in the 4th Congressional District, held a campaign meet and greet event, including area and statewide candidates, in Sedalia yesterday evening. Elad Gross (D), a candidate for Attorney General addressed the crowd of a little over a hundred individuals:

Elad Gross (D): (audio edit) …Today Missouri is the, one of the most dangerous states in the country because of the level of violence that we’re seeing in so many communities. It’s not limited to St. Louis, it’s not limited to Kansas City, it’s in Springfield, it’s in St. Joe, it’s in Columbia, it’s just about anywhere that you’d go.

That’s what’s at stake in this election. That’s what we’re voting on. We have to decide if we’re gonna be putting our kids before all these other issue that we squabble about all the time. It’s way beyond party, it’s way beyond all this stuff that we see on TV, all this manufactured debates. It’s about the character of us as Missourians.

We need to change the people that we have representing us and the way that we are being represented. And that’s why we need to send Lindsey [Simmons] to Congress. [applause] That’s why we need to do that. Because, you see that there’s almost no event where you’re going to see Lindsey by herself. You’ve always got your kid with you. And that means so much, right? You all know him. But that’s, that’s the representation that we need. And so I’m so happy you’re running. Thank you for doing it. [applause] Thank you. Yeah.

(audio edit)

…Because the way that we get this done is by building community with each other. It’s by looking at each other and finding out how can we help one another. It’s by saying that when, when you’re kid is hurt, that’s my kid, too. It’s by saying that we have each others’ backs. And that’s why it is so important for us to be in this room tonight. And we all understand it. But we also know that there are lots of people who are not in tis room tonight. There are lots of folks who should be in this room tonight, who have the same interests that we do, who know what the stakes are, but so many of them have given up. So many of them have said, what’s the point? I get all these promises and nothing ever changes for me. Right? We know those people.

That’s why this has to be so much more than just getting one or two or three people in this room elected to office. Even all of us.

We have got to change the way that we run Missouri. We have got to change it. We have got to take back our state.

That’s what’s at stake in this election. And that’s why we need to get people in this room elected. We need to get people in this room. We need to go door-to-door and make sure that they understand that they have hope in this election, too. That we are going to take back our state and make sure that folks like Lindsey [Simmon] and everybody else in this room represent us. [applause] That’s what we ought to do. Thank you all.

Previously:

Lindsey Simmons (D) – in the 4th Congressional District – Sedalia, Missouri – January 25, 2020 (January 26, 2020)

The 4th Congressional District Democratic Committee held its bi-monthly meeting in Sedalia this afternoon. Elad Gross (D), a candidate for Attorney General in 2020, an open records advocate, and a foe of “dark money”, spoke to the group.

Elad Gross (D), Sedalia, Missouri, April 7, 2019.

…I’m running for Attorney General because we need to enforce those rules, very much. I’m running to prosecute public corruption in our state, bring accountability back to Jefferson City, and end dark money. [applause] I’m assuming from that reaction we know what dark money is. [laughter] Dark money’s the worst. Dark money is anonymous campaign contributions. It’s pretty much it. So, if you’ve donated to a candidate before….if you want to donate, if we want to donate we have to give a whole bunch of information about ourselves, right? So you say how much money I’m donating, we get your first name, your last name, your address, uh, who you work for, what you do. Yeah?

Now, if you have a whole bunch of money you don’t have to do any of that….but if you have a bunch of money, you hire a bunch of attorneys, and you start a charity….So we create this charity…we take millions and millions of dollars from you and all of your friends and you put it into the non-profit….and all the names of the donors it cleanses them off because these…non-profits don’t have to reveal the names of their donors. Yeah, so then, the non-profit takes all that money and gives it away to candidates, to issues, whatever it wants. Right, million of dollars. And we never see the original sources of those donations. None. [….]

Elad Gross spoke for about forty-five minutes and then took questions.