JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, a Republican candidate for governor, has died, his office said Thursday.
According to a statement from his office, the 54-year-old Schweich died Thursday. He was taken to the hospital after what his staff described as a “medical situation” at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton. The statement asked for the public to consider his wife, Kathy, and their two children.
Schweich had served as auditor since January 2011 and won re-election in November to a second, four-year term. He announced a month ago that he was seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2016, and was gearing up for an expected primary fight against Catherine Hanaway, a former U.S. attorney and Missouri House speaker.
Schweich made his political debut in 2009. He had initially considered running for the seat being vacated in 2010 by Republican U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, and he had the encouragement of his mentor, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth. But Schweich decided to defer to Rep. Roy Blunt to avoid a divisive GOP Senate primary and instead challenged and defeated Democratic State Auditor Susan Montee in the 2010 election.
He previously worked as a private-sector attorney and for the federal government. Schweich was Danforth’s chief of staff for the 1999 federal investigation into the deadly government siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and followed Danforth to the United Nations, where he was chief of staff for the U.S. delegation.