(AUDIO): Kehoe touts working-class upbringing in Missouri gubernatorial campaign video

Missouri Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe, left, listens to Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Wilson deliver the annual State of the Judiciary address in Jefferson City on February 8, 2023 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

Hundreds of people packed Jefferson City’s Capital Bluffs venue Tuesday evening, as Missouri Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe (R) launched his 2024 gubernatorial campaign.

Kehoe has also unveiled a new online video called “Living Proof.”


“I grew up here in north St. Louis City. Growing up, I didn’t have a famous father, or a father at all. He left when I was one, leaving a single mother to raise six kids. There was no entitlement. I did odd jobs around the neighborhood to pay for my high school. I didn’t go to college. I went to work washing cars, here, to earn money so that my siblings and I could help our single mother make ends meet,” Kehoe says in the video.

He also talks in the video about how he turned around mid-Missouri’s Osage Ambulance company.

“Missouri has taught me, no matter what, there is always hope,” Kehoe says in the video.

Kehoe tells his supporters that he’s the only candidate for governor who is ready on day one to make our communities safer, control spending and protect freedoms.

He’s expected to face Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and State Sen. William Eigel (R-Weldon Spring) in the August 2024 GOP primary. GOP Governor Mike Parson has said this will be his final term. The Missouri Democratic gubernatorial primary will also be in August 2024.

Mike Kehoe served on the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission before being elected to the state Senate in 2010, replacing term-limited State Sen. Carl Vogel (R-Jefferson City). Senator Vogel has since passed away. Kehoe was re-elected to the Senate in 2014, and Governor Parson appointed him as lieutenant governor in 2018 after then-Governor Eric Greitens resigned. Kehoe was elected to a full term as lieutenant governor in 2020, earning more than 58 percent of the vote to beat Democrat Alissia Canady.