Missouri candidate with ties to the KKK can stay on the Republican ballot, judge rules
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri gubernatorial candidate with ties to the Ku Klux Klan will remain on the Republican ticket, a judge ruled Friday.
Cole County Circuit Court Judge Cotton Walker has denied a request from the Missouri Republican Party to kick Darrell McClanahan out of the August Republican primary.
McClanahan is running against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, state Sen. Bill Eigel and others for the GOP nomination to replace Gov. Mike Parson, who is barred from re-election due to term limits.
McClanahan’s attorney, Dave Roland, said the ruling leaves party leaders without “nearly unlimited discretion to choose who can participate in a primary vote.”
“Their theory of the case would arguably have required courts to remove people from the ballot, perhaps even the day before the election,” Roland said.
McClanahan, who describes himself as “pro-white” but denies being racist or anti-Semitic, was among nearly 280 Republican candidates who officially filed for office in February, on what is known as filing day. Hundreds of candidates line up at the Secretary of State’s office in Jefferson City on filing day in Missouri, the first opportunity to officially file for office.
The Republican Party of Missouri accepted his party contributions but denounced him after a former state lawmaker posted photos on social media showing McClanahan giving the Nazi salute. McClanahan confirmed the accuracy of the photos to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In his decision, Walker wrote that the Republican Party “has made clear that it does not endorse his candidacy, and that it remains free to publicly reject McClanahan and any views that the plaintiff believes are contrary to its values.”
“I’m not sure they ever really intended to win this case,” said McClanahan’s attorney Roland. “I think the case was filed because the Republican Party wanted to make a big public show that they don’t want to be associated with racism or anti-Semitism. And the best way they could do that was to file a case that they knew would almost certainly lose.”
Associated Press email requests for comment to the Missouri GOP executive director and his attorney were not immediately returned Friday. But attorneys for the Missouri Republican Party have said party leaders did not realize who McClanahan was when he declared his candidacy in February.
McClanahan has argued that the Missouri Republican Party was aware of the beliefs. He previously ran as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in 2022.
In a separate lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League last year, McClanahan claimed the organization defamed him by calling him a white supremacist in an online post.
In his lawsuit against the ADL, McClanahan described himself as a “Pro-white man.” McClanahan wrote that he is not a member of the Ku Klux Klan; he said he had received an honorary membership for one year. And he said he attended a “private religious Christian Identity cross lighting ceremony that was incorrectly described as a cross burning.”