As he tries to become the next St. Charles County executive, former state Sen. Bill Eigel is defending his fundraising strategies that inspired Republican House members to advance legislation.
Eigel has faced bipartisan criticism for his fundraising appeals that touched on national issues to get small donors to give to his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. It prompted state Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis County, to sponsor legislation that would require explicit permission for someone to donate on a recurring basis to a campaign. It would also require those donations to stop when a campaign is over. The bill passed the House 134-16 and now goes to the Senate.
During an interview on the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air, Eigel contended that critics of his approach are trying to make it harder for candidates to put together a large, small donor network. He said this is preferable to statewide candidates who depend on large checks to get elected.
"And the problem I see with a lot of these big checks, of course, is that when a single person writes a massive check, a lot of time there's expectations as a result of that check," Eigel said. "So to balance that, there's been a rise of these low dollar networks where not only are you talking about yourself as a candidate, but more than that, you're talking about ideas that you support."
During his 2024 gubernatorial campaign, Eigel often brought up President Donald Trump or national issues to get people to donate to his state-based campaign. As he tries to unseat St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, Eigel said he's still using that strategy, though he's now bringing up national topics like billionaire Elon Musk's fizzled efforts to cut federal spending.
"We ought to have people in office at all levels of government that are supporting government efficiency," Eigel said. "And we send that message out, not just here in Missouri, but all over the country. Because, as it turns out, the ideas that we're talking about just like that are popular all across America right now. And folks are responding to that by sending $1, $2, $5 to candidates that are putting these ideas out there."
Several news outlets, including the Missouri Independent and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, found contributors from out of state who claimed they had no clue they were giving to a Missouri-based candidate. Eigel said his campaign has offered refunds to anyone who felt they'd made the donation in error to either his campaign committee or his political action committee.
He added that a company called WinRed that allows people to donate online has "strict guidelines" and possesses mechanisms to shut down bad actors. Eigel said that hasn't happened with committees helping his campaign.
"We want people to be supporting our efforts because they like the ideas that we're talking about," Eigel said. "And again, when we have hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country that are responding to those messages, we absolutely want to make sure that there's some integrity of the system."
Eigel says legislation has political purpose
When he spoke on the House floor earlier this month, Murphy said his bill is necessary to prevent people from being fooled into donating to certain campaigns.
"This is really something that we just can't have in the state of Missouri," Murphy said. "We can't be flimflamming people into donating to our campaigns. We have to be aboveboard. We're better than this."
But Eigel said there's a political motive behind the legislation. He said if Republicans who disliked him didn't perceive him as a threat to become St. Charles County executive, they wouldn't be pushing Murphy's bill.
"I'm making the case that this is more about targeting an individual, me in this case, than it is about what actually makes up good policy," Eigel said.
Eigel ended up losing to now-Gov. Mike Kehoe in the GOP primary by about 48,000 votes. Asked if he thought the legislation was aimed at weakening him so much he wouldn't challenge Kehoe in the 2028 primary for governor, Eigel said it wasn't about a particular race in the future.
"It is absolutely about trying to weaken me versus an honest discussion about what fundraising is good, how we should manage fundraising, and what's appropriate in our current culture. It is absolutely an attack on me," Eigel said.
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