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Aug. 4, 2024 |  By: Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Out-of-state group targets Bill Eigel in Missouri GOP governor’s primary

bill eigel

By Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

A company registered in Delaware that uses a Jefferson City mailbox and an Oklahoma telephone number this month added nearly half a million dollars to outside spending against state Sen. Bill Eigel in the Missouri Republican governor’s primary.

The Heartland Conservative Coalition LLC spent $438,259 since July 1, including $360,000 on television advertising, according to reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Those reports give only the amount of money being used in Missouri but do not include the donors or list any individual as a contact.

There is no Heartland Conservative Coalition LLC registered to do business in Missouri but there is one that registered May 8 in Delaware, a common location for corporate registration.

The group is just one of several from outside Missouri pouring cash into the GOP gubernatorial race and congressional primaries in the 1st and 3rd districts in advance of Tuesday’s election. The biggest outside spender in the governor’s race so far is Stand for US PAC, which The Independent reported Friday morning had purchased more than $2.5 million in the last two weeks in air time to boost Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

Candidates and independent PACs combined to purchase or revise previous broadcast orders worth almost $5 million on Thursday, according to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission. 

The address for Heartland Conservative Coalition in its reports to the Missouri Ethics Commission is a mailbox at a Jefferson City Staples store. Messages left at the telephone number listed on the spending reports were not returned.

Most of the spending was for television ads in the St. Louis area, which includes Eigel’s home in St. Charles County. Aside from the television ads, Heartland purchased $68,000 of communications and polling services from the Kansas City consulting firm Axiom Strategies and its affiliated companies.

Axiom is one of several consulting firms working with American Dream PAC, the joint fundraising committee set up to aid Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe’s bid for the Republican nomination. The media buyer for the Heartland Conservative Coalition ads is Armada Strategies, which has been connected to Axiom in other races around the country. 

On the standard reporting forms filed with broadcasters who accept the ads, Heartland lists as its contact Wayne Ducote at a Washington, D.C. address that is also a mailbox in a retail mail and shipping store.

Ducote is chairman of the American Exceptionalism Institute, a nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors that distributed more than $11 million in 2022 to support Republicans around the country. Calls to the American Exceptionalism Institute were not returned.

The American Exceptionalism Institute was one of the donors to the Conservative Americans PAC, which in 2022 spent $1.7 million in Missouri primaries for the 4th and 7th congressional districts, according to the campaign watchdog, Open Secrets. The ads targeted state Sens. Rick Brattin in the 4th District and Mike Moon and Eric Burlison in the 7th District. Burlison is the only Missouri candidate the group opposed who won his race.