Missouri Candidate's Children: Don't Vote For Our Dad

KANSAS CITY, MO — It's could be an awkward Thanksgiving for one Missouri family this year — if they share Thanksgiving at all. The Kansas City Star reports the children of Steve West, a Republican candidate running for Missouri's General Assembly, are telling voters not to vote for their dad.

"I can’t imagine him being in any level of government," daughter Emily West told the paper earlier this week, calling him racist, homophobic and an anti-Semite. "A lot of his views are just very out there."

West's son, Andy, went even farther. "My dad's a fanatic," he told the paper, calling him "totally insane." "He must be stopped."

West is currently facing Democrat Rep. Jon Carpenter in a contest for Missouri's 15th district, centered on Gladstone, Missouri, just north of Kansas City.

West's children say that if voters elect their father, it would legitimize his racist views — views similar to those of a gunman who killed 11 people at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27. The suspect in the shooting regularly espoused anti-Semitic and white supremacist sentiments on social media, including conspiracy theories about Jewish people funding a caravan of Central American refugees that President Donald Trump has falsely called an "invasion."

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Andy West said that while his father would not engage in violence, he and the shooter have the same ultimate goal: "The removal of Jews from America."

The Missouri Republican Party has also disavowed West, calling his rhetoric "abhorrent," "shocking" and "vile."

Some of that rhetoric includes blaming Israel for gay marriage, pornography and abortion.

West's children asked him to drop out of the race soon after he won his primary in August and haven't spoken to him since. West said he has no intention of doing so, adding: "There's a good chance I'm going to win."

He told the Kansas City Star that he blames his ex-wife for having "poisoned my kids."

Read more from the Kansas City Star.

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