State Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, waited patiently for Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller to post results for 12 outstanding precincts among the 57 in Missouri Senate District 30.
“We’ve got to wait until Shane tallies all the results and then we’ll go from there,” Hough said just before 10 p.m. Aug. 2. “But I like the position that we’re in, I like the campaign that we’ve run.”
When all the votes were counted, Hough had 8,762 votes (57 percent) to challenger Angela Romine's 6,715, according to unofficial results in the Republic primary for District 30.
Aside from partaking in the special session declared by Gov. Mike Parson regarding seeking tax relief for Missourians, Hough intends to spend the remainder of 2022 at home, meeting with and listening to the concerns of his constituents before starting a second term in January 2023.
“Nothing changes,” Hough said, regarding how he plans on campaigning in the general election. “I will continue to be the same person that I am right now, tomorrow, the next day. …I hate to say this, but nothing changes, we just keep doing what we’re doing right now and do the best job we can for the people in Springfield.”
Hough will face Raymond Lampert, an attorney who ran unopposed in the Democrat primary, on Nov. 8.
The divisive Republican primary for Missouri’s 30th Senate District pitted Romine against Hough. Romine said she was approached by constituents who asked her to run, and upon “prayer” and looking at Hough’s voting record in the Missouri Senate, she challenged his reelection bid in the primary.
While District 30 saw some slight changes to the map in the state legislature’s recent redistricting process, Hough will remain a senator for the vast majority of Springfield and Greene County residents. He prides himself on the work he has done for his district, and he stands in line to become state budget chair, a powerful position, in the next session.
Hough, a farmer and Springfield native, has been elected to some form of political office since 2010, serving as a state representative from 2011-2016, then a Greene County Commissioner from 2016-2018.
In 2018, Hough was elected to the Missouri General Assembly’s upper chamber.
While Hough primarily campaigned on his voting record and ability to take actions in Jefferson City that benefit Greene County, Romine promoted herself as a “true Republican” and a “citizen for the citizen.”
Hough is a supporter of tax cuts, bolstering mental health services and letting school boards control how their districts operate. Romine said she favors more state and parental control in setting public school curriculum, is opposed to any form of “red flag” laws for gun buyers and said more steps need to be taken to bar abortion procedures in Missouri following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
There were attack advertisements from both Hough and Romine’s supporters and political action committees. The clashing advertisements painted Romine and Hough as a “liberal,” in an attempt to turn conservative Springfield voters toward the other candidate. Ads claimed that Romine, as a Springfield city councilwoman, voted to defund the police, and Hough, as a state senator, voted to defund police in Kansas City.
For the entirety of the campaign trail, Hough out-fundraised and out-spent Romine. At the end of the most recent campaign finance filing deadline with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Hough still had about $149,000 cash on hand, and Romine had a little more than $13,000.
Although he has faced no primary challenge, Lampert's campaign activity has been minimal thus far. In a previous bid for Representative of House District 137, he campaigned on Medicaid expansion, worker protections, and education funding.
