Missouri Third Congressional District candidate interview: John Fraser

ABC 17 News is interviewing candidates heading into the Aug. 4 election. On the Republican ticket for the Missouri Third Congressional seat is John Fraser. The primary race is between Fraser and incumbent Bob Onder. The winner will face either Tommy Holstein or Bethany Mann from the Democratic primary. ABC 17 News reporter Mitchell Kaminski interviewed Fraser ahead of the election. Read the transcript of the interview with Fraser below.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ) 

Mitchell Kaminski: So, I guess just for starters, what made you want to run for this seat? 

John Fraser: That’s a great question; I get that one a lot. So over the last year or so, I'm watching people pay more because of the tariffs, more for gas, more for goods, more for groceries, and I'm watching this war going on. It's really an unnecessary war. But really, what it boils down to is I'm watching Onder’s voting record. When you look at his voting record, he does not have Missouri's interests in mind. 

Just for an example, just last week, he authored legislation to save his hobby airline buddies more money on their landing fees. So that's kind of his priorities. And then last year, he also authored legislation to rename the Kennedy Center. At the same time, all the tariffs were hurting farmers very badly. That's another thing on his voting record: he voted for tariffs, and it's hurting farmers badly. 

As you know, I grew up in a small town, and I worked for farmers when I was growing up, walking beans, hauling bales. I'm a farmer. My friends when I was growing up are farmers. So I'm watching all this happen, and I'm becoming more and more dissatisfied with how we are being represented. So I decided sitting on the sidelines was no longer an option, and I was going to run for Congress. 

Kaminski: Well, I'm glad you brought up his [Bob Onder] voting record because that's something I kind of wanted to get into. This has been a pretty red district since 2013, and previously, he had secured an endorsement from President Trump. I'm curious now, though, do you think that is going to help or hurt based off of that voting record and having a Trump endorsement? Do you think you're going to be able to sway some of those, even diehard MAGA voters, to go vote against him? 

Fraser: What I boil it down to is, what are the people of Missouri's Third District, what helps them?  And I think when they look at his voting record, and they look at what I'm about, I'm about free trade. I'd never vote for a tariff. Another thing, if the voters look at it, Onder voted to increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion, and he calls himself a fiscal conservative. Most MAGA voters are fiscal conservatives.  So I mean, conservatives go way back in time, are against deficits. So when you look at his voting record and how it affects the members, the citizens of the Third District, I think that they will be convinced that John G. Fraser will be a better representative for them. 

Kaminski: Kind of a two-pronged question here: How do you feel that the campaign has gone so far? And when you're out speaking with voters, is there one issue that seems to be kind of the biggest issue facing the Third District right now? 

Fraser: I'm a first-time candidate, in contrast with Bob Onder. He's been in politics 20 years. So I'm learning a lot this first go around. It's very interesting. You know, the fun part is talking to voters and finding out what's important to them. I hate the part about asking people for money. I hate that part. But I like everything else about it. The biggest question is data centers. I mean, I get that more often than anything. 

Kaminski: So let’s go there. I know that is a pretty hot topic, and around Mid-Missouri, there’s a lot more of these projects being proposed and popping up. Do you have a stance on these projects, good, bad, or otherwise? 

Fraser: Well, I do, and it all revolves around the citizens having the decision power. So my position is the citizens of the county should vote on it. They should be a closed-loop system so they don't need water from the aquifer. They should pay for a little more than 100% of the electrical infrastructure, including the backup connection to the local grid. I know a little bit about how the data centers are financed and what their funding sources are. And believe me, if the county commissioners in each county aren't getting a lot of concessions because they have money, if you ask them for anything, they'll pay for it. So in the end, after they pay for all the electric grid and all the backup connections,  the electricity bill to the county residents should be slightly lower than what it was before the data center was put in place. 

So those would be my conditions.

So these are local issues, right? At a federal level, I am very much against federal government overreach. It’s part of my campaign, and that's how I'm going to represent the citizens of Missouri.  So, I would never vote in favor of any legislation at the federal level that would require citizens of a county to accept something they do not want. 

Kaminski: So you mentioned this is your first time running for office. For people in the Third District that have never heard the name John Fraser, how would you describe your platform? 

Fraser: My platform is, in a word, in a phrase, it would be a Reagan conservative. So I'm against deficits. I'm for free trade. I'm very much against federal government overreach. Remember Reagan's most feared nine words. ‘I'm from the government, I'm here to help you.’ People that are my age remember that. So that's in a nutshell what I'm about. Conservative. The government's too big. If you look at Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the role of government is actually very small. I mean, it's not very big at all, and it's just gotten way too out of hand. Our deficits are showing that.

The other thing I would want my voters to know is I'm actually working on, I'm a CPA, I have a master's in applied economics. I'm actually working on my own plan to balance the budget. So I plan on bringing that with me to Congress in January. 

Kaminski: There are a couple of big other amendments on the ballot, at least here in Missouri. I was just curious to get your thoughts on it. Specifically for Amendment 4 and Amendment 5: how do you feel about either of those? 

Fraser: Well, I mentioned I'm a CPA and have a master's in applied economics, so I need data to make a decision. So on the income tax issue, it's an intriguing idea. It really is. But to me, there's just not enough data surrounding the issue. I mean, what's the tax going to be replaced with? How much is the sales tax going to go up? Are veterans going to be exempt? Is clothing going to be exempt? Is food going to be exempt? There's just not enough data around the whole issue to make a decision on. So I couldn't support it because of that.  

And I'll just give you an example. So one number that people are throwing around is that a family that makes $72,000 a year pays, what, $2,700 in taxes, right? So then they wouldn't have to pay that anymore. But then, if the government is going to replace that revenue with sales taxes and let's just assume sales tax goes up 2% to make up for it, that same family is going to have to spend $135,000 to make up that $2,700 in taxes. So the math just doesn't make sense without more data. So it's an intriguing idea. There's just not enough data surrounding the topic to make a decision. So I couldn't support it because there are just too many unknowns.

Kaminski: Finally, I'll leave the floor open to you. Is there anything you would like to add that you think would be important for voters to know we might not have touched on? 

Fraser: I think we touched on all the major topics. I mean, I guess maybe we left out a little bit about me. You know, I grew up in a small town. It’s real rural, about 2,000 people. And I grew up with farmers. I hauled bales, walked bean fields, worked construction sites. I'm just pretty much like everybody in the district. I'm not one of the top 100 richest congressmen like Bob Onder. It's pretty clear that he has interests other than Missouri citizens in mind. 

And I guess I want to close by one other kind of serious thing on his voting record. So two times in 2025, he could have released the Epstein files, on July 15, 2025, and Dec. 2, 2025. That’s another key thing I would have voted to release the Epstein files; we were one vote short in both those instances, and it could have been released then. He didn’t vote to release them until he was given permission to do so. I'm an independent thinker. I think that's what I would want people to know. I'm not going to let anybody tell me how to vote. I’m going to vote in the interest of Missouri’s Third District citizens. 

Kaminski: Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. 

Fraser: Yeah, thank you.