A day after announcing her run for governor, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, kicked off her campaign at a coffee shop in the heart of her district.
Reporters, supporters and Springfield leaders filled the back room of Big Momma’s coffee shop on Commercial Street. Quade has long lived around the corner from the shop, and used it for the July 10 press conference launching her campaign.
“After serving as the House Democratic leader for the past seven years, I’m ready to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the state of Missouri,” Quade said, prompting cheers and applause from the crowd. “My daddy wasn’t a U.S. senator or governor. I’m a mom, I’m a social worker and a leader who builds bridges to make change.”
Quade wants campaign to focus on ‘pocketbook issues’
When announcing her candidacy early in the morning on July 9, Quade touched on some hallmark issues, including abortion rights, the initiative petition process and Medicaid expansion. On July 10, she introduced more “pocketbook issues” that she wants to focus on in the campaign ahead.
“I want this campaign to be about our plans to strengthen our public schools, to make health care more affordable and accessible, and how to get better childcare in every single corner of our state,” Quade said. “I want this campaign to be about protecting Missouri farmland, our environment and our state’s natural beauty. I want this campaign to be about how to best address our challenges as a state.”
Quade said Republicans don’t care to address some of the issues she outlined and that Jefferson City politicians “think it’s a game.”
“They have one playbook, a relentless full-scale attack on our rights and our freedoms,” she told the onlookers. “They seek to divide us at every turn. They manufacture crises where none exist. They assault workers rights, and they want to be in the rooms with us and our doctors, and they even are trying to shut down our public libraries. And I, frankly, have had enough.”
In response to a question from an audience member, Quade said one of the biggest attacks on freedom in Missouri is that of the state government telling leaders in communities “what’s best for them.”
“I say this often jokingly — but it’s totally serious in that I never realized that — as the Democratic floor leader, I would be fighting for local control nearly as much as I have…It’s something that the Republican Party says they stand for, but they’ve shown us in Jefferson City that they do not,” she said.
Quade said in order to address crime, it was imperative that the state government listen to law enforcement officers, who she said often testify against what Republican lawmakers are trying to pass.
As a Democratic Party leader in a state dominated by Republicans, Quade has had to rely on compromise and working across the aisle on some issues, and has expressed value in her working relationship with some Republicans.
“What’s unfortunate about this race, and when you look at other races across the state, is that it makes it really difficult to dive in and talk about policy when the extremes are winning, when it’s these hot topic talking points that the Republicans are running on to try to be divisive,” she said in an interview with the Springfield Daily Citizen.
“To work across the aisle — it has been a huge priority of mine since the beginning, and it will continue to be,” Quade said. “And if I’m Governor, you can expect me to have folks even working within the administration who might not always agree with me on every issue.”
Quade acknowledges challenges in campaign
If elected, Quade would be the first female governor in Missouri’s history. While she acknowledged that “women in politics is tough,” referencing the ability of a bill to make it to the governor’s desk in Missouri without a single woman’s signature, Quade remains uncertain if it will make her campaign easier or more difficult.
However, when it comes to a potential referendum on abortion access, she said that will be one of the biggest discussion points in Missouri for the 2024 election and “instrumental” for her as a Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
Eleven different initiative petitions have been filed to entrench the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution, but are currently being held up in court after Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey refused to certify the fiscal summary drafted by State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick.
While Quade has managed accrue recognition as the lower chamber’s top Democrat, the biggest pockets of likely Democratic votes, Kansas City and St. Louis will be new campaigning territory for Quade.
While she acknowledged the two cities’ vital roles if she stands a chance at being elected governor, Quade said that she has to be present in rural communities around the state.
“Just because I represent Springfield in the legislature as minority leader, I represent all of the elected Democrats,” she told the Daily Citizen. “I put a lot of energy behind that. I will be present, in all of the communities, including the cities, and hopefully I will make folks excited enough to turn out.”
GOP-controlled legislature could challenge a Democratic governor
While Republicans not only hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Missouri General Assembly, they also currently hold every statewide office in Missouri. The last Democratic statewide officeholder, State Auditor Nicole Galloway, lost the 2020 gubernatorial election to current Gov. Mike Parson.
Quade is aware of the challenges she might face as governor, if elected. Former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, often faced veto overrides from the Republican-dominated legislature.
Quade said that while the race is more than just about the governorship, and taking power back “to the middle ground,” she’s optimistic about the current strength of her caucus and its future, pointing to the fact that the House is only three votes away from breaking the veto-proof majority.
“[Republicans] do not have an overwhelming majority on every single issue,” Quade said. “More often than not, they need Democrats to pass their priority pieces of legislation. And so I will continue to lean into that and lean into the fact that their party’s divided. They have the ultra-conservatives, they have the folks who call themselves the moderates, and they don’t work together very well. And so that does lend making the job as governor as a Democrat a little bit easier.”
Plans to remain minority leader in 2024
Quade won her fourth and final term in the House in 2022. When Quade was first elected in 2016, she was the only Democratic state representative from a district south of Columbia. Democrats Betsy Fogle and Stephanie Hein have since been elected to represent districts 135 and 136, respectively.
Quade is the first major Democrat to enter the gubernatorial race. Parson is term-limited and at least three Republicans seek to replace him for a four-year term as Missouri’s chief executive, including Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and State Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring. Before facing one of them, and candidates from other political parties, Quade will first have to win the Democratic primary, which will take place on Aug. 6, 2024. The general election is on Nov. 5.
A graduate of Missouri State University, Quade previously served as the director of Springfield-based nonprofit Care to Learn, worked for the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks and as a constituent services representative for the U.S. Senate.
In addition to being a state representative for House District 132, which encompasses much of northwest Springfield and part of downtown, Quade works for the Civic Engagement Team for the City of Springfield’s Community Focus Report, and serves as a board member for Better Life in Recovery.
With one year left in the Missouri House before she terms out, Quade indicated her intention to continue being the House minority leader in 2024.
Quade’s most recent campaign finance report, filed on April 17, shows her campaign committee with more than $68,000 on hand. A political action committee dubbed the Crystal PAC had more than $33,000, as of April 1.
(Editor’s note: Daily Citizen Board Chairman Thomas Carlson and his wife Chandler, as well as board members Jim Anderson and M. Suzanne Shaw, have previously made donations to Quade’s campaign for state representative. Board members play no role in news coverage decisions.)
