Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Jason Kander lost in his bid to unseat Roy Blunt this week -- but he is far from discouraged.
Kander, who is now Missouri's Secretary of State, was defeated by only three points this year in a state that Trump won by a whopping 19 points, and he thinks this is an indication that Democrats can successfully run as strong progressives even in red states.
"We're all disappointed in Tuesday's results," he wrote in an email to supporters on Thursday. "We lost an election. In fact, we -- the Democrats -- lost a whole host of elections on Tuesday. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off... Be proud of the campaign he ran. In a 'red' state that Donald Trump by 19%, we came within 3% from turning the Senate seat blue. And we didn't do it by hugging the middle and pretending to be moderate Republicans."
Among other things, Kander touted his support for "smart environmental policies, for unions, for LGBT equality, for commonsense gun safety, and a host of other important causes." Kander, who formerly served as an army intelligence officer, famously made an advertisement of himself assembling a rifle blindfolded to show that you can both support the second amendment and still support smart gun safety measures.
Kander concludes his letter by saying that he's "proud that we didn't back down and that we demonstrated that the most important thing Democrats can do is to make their argument."
Check out the whole letter embedded below.
