John,
When medical bills bankrupted our family, my dad fought like hell to provide for and protect us. Like a lot of Missouri dads, he gave up his chance at the American dream so he could give us kids our own chance. He taught me an important lesson: Service requires sacrifice.
I hope you’re having a chance to celebrate Father’s Day and Juneteenth with family today! When you have a moment to read through this email, I wanted to have a chance to ask you to chip in $10 (or whatever you can) to our grassroots campaign today.
But before I do, I want to share five things I think you should know about me, the community my dad raised our family in, and my decision to run for Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat.
- I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Cole County and like many Missouri families, mine lived paycheck-to-paycheck. When my littlest sister was born with a heart condition, we went bankrupt from medical bills and relied on our community to help us make it. They supported us through it all — sending casserole dinners while my parents were in the hospital with my sister and ultimately helping send me to college.
- After college, I joined the United States Marine Corps to honor everything our community had given to me and my family growing up. I deployed to Iraq once, Afghanistan twice. My final tour was at the Pentagon, where I worked to stop the spread of nuclear, chemical, and missile technology around the globe + oversaw U.S. military compliance with our international arms control obligations and negotiated arms control agreements at NATO and with Russia. I spent every day doing what I could to make the world a safer place, with fewer weapons, less conflict, and more money to spend on improving lives rather than destroying them.
- Overseas, I saw first-hand how corrupt politicians like Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley were willing to spend trillions on pointless forever wars and “nation-building” in someone else’s country. But every time I came back home to my old neighborhood, I saw how those same politicians were letting massive corporations strip our own communities for parts — the corner store where my mom floated a check boarded up, our first family home bulldozed to the ground.
- In my final year of active duty, I worked to upend the corporate defense monopolies that leave our country less safe. I also joined an organization that fights corporate monopolies — taking on defense contractors, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, Wall Street. The people buying off our politicians and leaving the rest of us behind. And I was ready to keep fighting back.
- Now I’m running for U.S. Senate to fundamentally change who has power in our country — so real people, not corrupt corporations or criminal politicians, can call the shots. I want to abolish corporate PACs, expose lobbyists writing our laws, criminalize war profiteering, ban insider trading among members of Congress, and enact a Marshall Plan for the Midwest — a massive investment and job creation program that will rebuild our forgotten communities and get us off fossil fuels once and for all.
We’re building a truly people-powered campaign to take back Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat for real, everyday people — and I want you to be a part of it.
So John, will you add a donation of $10, $25, or $30 to my grassroots campaign today? I don’t take a cent from corporate PACs, so I mean it when I say absolutely any amount matters to me.
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It’s time everyday Missourians like my dad and the folks in our community — working people who know how to take care of each other — called the shots in our country, not the monopolies, multinational corporations, and career politicians who’ve sold off jobs and land and stripped our communities for parts.
We need to take back this U.S. Senate seat for the people. That’s what we are fighting for and what drives the campaign we are building together.
Let’s do this,
Lucas Kunce
