ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Thursday at the Missouri State Fair was quite interesting in Sedalia, Missouri, with Lucas Kunce and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley both meeting face to face at the Governor's Ham Breakfast.
The stare down saw Kunce and Hawley jabbed at each other with personal digs, disputes about whether campaign ads are accurate and when, or if, they would meet formally before television cameras.
"The two nominees for the individual parties for the United State Senate showed up down in Sedalia in the State Fair and essentially had a cosplay from my perspective," said Michael Kelley on "Hancock and Kelley" Friday.
Kelley and his co-host John Hancock noticed during the stare down that there were some similarities between the two despite being on the different sides of the political spectrum.
"They are both populists," said Hancock. "I'm sure they are going to differ on policy some, but perhaps not as much as you think in a Democrat versus Republican race.
"When and if they do debate, it's going to be really interesting to see what the policy differences are because both of them are populists."
Hancock ultimately believes that Hawley will run away with the race due to Missouri becoming a hard red state over the recent years, while Kelley thinks Kunce still has a shot at upsetting Hawley.
"(Kunce) is getting the money from the coasts and you saw the power of money in this last primary," said Kelley. "Mike Kehoe raised a lot of money, guess what? He won.
Wesley Bell had a lot of money, he won. If you have a lot of money and you can communicate, I think you can."
Kelley thinks the way Hawley verbally jabbed at Kunce at the Governor's Ham Breakfast leads him to believe that Hawley thinks he might be vulnerable.
"Josh Hawley is an incumbent who should be up 10-15 points (in polls) in the state of Missouri...and engaging with his opponent like this makes me think Hawley internally feels as though he might be vulnerable with an onslaught of outside attention coming in at the last moment," said Kelley. "Otherwise, why would you engage with Kunce if you are Josh Hawley?"