Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, left, and his Republican primary opponent, Will Scharf. Courtesy of the Andrew Bailey and Will Scharf campaigns

By Louis Keene August 6, 2024

An exceptionally weird, occasionally explosive and surprisingly Jewish primary race for Missouri attorney general concluded Tuesday with the defeat of a tefillin-wrapping Republican who came under fire (figuratively) after shooting a grenade launcher in a campaign ad (literally).

Will Scharf, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, lost handily in the Republican primary to incumbent Andrew Bailey, with The New York Times calling the race with roughly a third of ballots counted and Bailey holding about 64% of the vote. 

Bailey will face Democratic civil rights attorney Elad Gross — whose primary opponent dropped out after accusing Gross and Scharf of being Mossad plants (really!) — in the November election.

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Although the Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Cori Bush dominated primary day headlines in the state, Missouri’s attorney general race may have been more quintessentially Midwestern: It featured cameos from conspiracy theorists and culture warriors while foregrounding cashew chicken and firearms, and occasionally veering into the antisemitic. And like the much-scrutinized race between Bush and Wesley Bell, millions of dollars have poured in from outside PACs to influence the outcome.

The weirdness began in December, with a bill to make cashew chicken — believed by some to have been invented in Springfield, Missouri — the official state dish. People got mad about the proposal online, including Democratic state representative and attorney general candidate Sarah Unsicker, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to call it a “distraction campaign” likely “manipulated by foreign bots.”

Two days later, Unsicker posted a selfie with a pair of online oddballs, Charles Johnson and Eric Garland, immediately inciting controversy because Johnson has been accused of Holocaust denial. Shortly after, she broadcast the assertion — first made by Johnson — that both Gross and Scharf were secretly agents of the Israeli government. (The evidence: Gross’ wife once worked for the local ADL chapter, and Scharf was supposedly funded by a “Chinese-Israeli” oligarch.) 

Scharf, in response, said, “They’re so far down the rabbit hole even the rabbits think they’re crazy.” Gross called Unsicker “unfit” to run for the office.

Unsicker subsequently dropped out of the race and announced she was running for governor instead. But Missouri Democrats blocked her from the state ballot.

For the next few months, focus on the race turned to the primary battle between Scharf and Bailey, both pro-Trump Republicans, in which at least $4.6 million was fundraised in July alone — approximately $3 million of which was for Scharf. In the meanwhile, Gross’ wife, Tasha Kaminsky, lost her job at a Jewish school due to her public criticism of Israel.

Accusations of antisemitism permeated the Republican primary, too. Attack ads against Scharf depicted his face over U.S. currency, called him a “New York City liberal” and labeled him “sneaky,” which critics said drew on antisemitic tropes. Bailey’s campaign took to calling him “Wall Street Willy.”

Scharf told Jewish Insider that “a lot of people” had expressed to him they felt the ads were antisemitic. 

Meanwhile, Scharf drew backlash for his grenade launcher commercial, which debuted amid bipartisan calls to calm political rhetoric following the assassination attempt against Trump. In the ad, he uses the gun — technically a 37-millimeter flare gun, the only grenade launcher that is legal for civilians to buy in the U.S. — to explode a pile of documents representing Trump’s various court cases. Scharf stood by the ad.

“It’s time for a Missouri attorney general who will return fire,” he said in the clip.

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