Former Hobby Lobby attorney front-runner in Missouri’s senate race

The Missouri attorney who was part of Hobby Lobby’s legal team when it won its challenge to the Obamacare contraceptive mandate is reportedly the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Currently Missouri’s attorney general, Hawley is one of 16 candidates competing in the Aug. 7 primary for the right to face incumbent Sen. Clare McCaskill. Only halfway through his first term as AG, Hawley will step down if he ultimately prevails in this year’s elections.

Among the national publications that have profiled the 38-year-old senatorial candidate: National Review and, more recently, The New York Times. 

Although not Catholic, Hawley attended an all-boys Catholic school in Kansas City, which is also the alma mater of Virginia Sen. (and 2016 vice presidential candidate) Tim Kaine. Hawley then graduated from Stanford University and Yale Law School before securing a clerkship with Michael McConnell, a circuit judge on the federal court of appeals in Colorado.

“He was my dream judge—a self-professed evangelical,” Hawley told National Review. “He was also a textualist who was interested in religious liberty.” 

Hawley met his wife Erin, a coworker, while serving as a clerk with John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.