A Maryville local is in the running for the Missouri 6th District congressman position. He is a first-time candidate looking to take over for the predecessor, Congressman Sam Graves.
Graves announced his retirement in March after 26 years in Congress. He will finish out this congressional session, which ends Jan. 3, 2027. This has brought forward the race for a new Missouri 6th District representative, Maryville resident Cody Oshel-R, is one of these candidates.
Ten candidates are running for this position: three are Democrats, six are Republicans and a Libertarian. The Missouri 6th District congressman position will be seen on the Missouri Primary Elections ballot Aug. 4. Oshel said he decided to run because of the political environment.
“I decided to run for Congress because there’s a lot of noise going on,” Oshel said. “I think over the last 10-15 years, people stopped having conversations face-to-face, and when we stop talking to each other, we start talking about each other, which creates a toxic culture. So, my goal is to travel across our district and to meet people where they are and connect with them — farmers, teachers, hospital employees — the people who are crucial to be able to help this district remain viable.”
Oshel works as a senior specialist of strategic growth partnerships with Thrivent Financial, a financial services company that provides financial advice throughout the U.S.
Oshel works remotely, which he said allows him to enjoy Maryville and its community. He said he travels across the country with Thrivent to lead brand partnerships.
While he travels often, northwest Missouri is still Oshel’s home. He said he grew up in Trenton, Missouri, and has since moved around multiple times to surrounding areas. He said he ended up in Maryville when he and his wife decided to raise their family.
“She went to Northwest, so when I was in Stanberry, she was here,” Oshel said. “We loved Maryville. It’s equal distance to both sides of the family, so being able to get grandparents’ support, but we loved being able to come up here, to…plant roots, to be able to really invest in the community, but also to raise our kids here, because it is such a safe, warm, welcoming community that has pretty much everything that you need.”
Oshel said the people and how much they care about supporting each other are what have kept him in this area.
Christopher Smiley, a fellow employee at Thrivent Financial, said Oshel is a perfect fit for this position. He said Oshel is not a career politician, but rather, someone rooted in the community he seeks to serve.
“I really feel like he will be able to represent well and really make sure that the people of the sixth district are heard and that their voices are represented well in Congress,” Smiley said. “He has a really, really good understanding of what the real issues are of the people across the district.”
Smiley said Oshel’s good communication skills and his ability to listen would make him successful in Congress.
If elected as the Missouri 6th District representative, Oshel said he will have multiple goals. He said his first priority is rural health.
“Right now, in the last year, three rural hospitals have closed in Missouri,” Oshel said. “At any day, 50% of them can close tomorrow, which would make a huge impact to the people that live and work here, and their livelihoods.”
He said creating legislation that helps support rural hospitals is vital. Oshel said providing the necessary resources to these hospitals will prevent people from having to travel long distances to get the necessary and specialty care they need.
Oshel said he has a personal connection to this increasing problem.
“My father lives in Princeton, Missouri; he has leukemia, and he’s traveling an hour and a half to be able to get treatment twice a week,” Oshel said. “He’s a small business owner, so his business relies on him being there.”
He said the Affordable Care Act has also created a large impact on individuals who now cannot afford medical insurance. The ACA is a health care reform law, which was enacted in 2010, according to the Health Insurance Marketplace.
“If you don’t qualify for Medicaid and you can’t afford insurance, you’re in this sandwich where you’re like, ‘OK, well, I just won’t go to the doctor,’ and then sometimes you go and it’s too late, and then the burden is great on you, it’s great on the community, it’s great on the hospital,” Oshel said.
Another goal of Oshel’s is to support agriculture further.
With the recent inflation, he said farmers have to do more with less. Oshel said they have had to cut back on land, and members of farming families are working extra jobs off the farm to remain insured. He said this has put a burden on the operation of these farms.
“Being able to support and protect those farms, we know…if costs continue to go up, inputs are up, and the outputs just aren’t aligning in the value there, so being able to support those people, so that they can be able to continue to leave a legacy for their family that they receive for them,” Oshel said.
He is also passionate about ensuring future generations are supported through quality education, as well as making certain the government is fiscally responsible.
“People aren’t getting massive raises every year, so Congress, the government, shouldn’t be getting massive raises every year as well,” Oshel said.
As the race moves forward, Oshel said the local people will continue to motivate him, and he looks forward to connecting with those in the district and the stories they have to tell. He said he is driven by learning what people struggle with and by the exciting events that occur in their lives. Oshel said these stories are what make him want to strive to be a well-rounded advocate for northwest Missouri.
He said because his family has lived in this area for seven generations, he wants to ensure this population is represented well and not by a “D.C. elite.”
“One goal that I have is that, every year when elected, I plan to go to every county in the district to be able to see the people, to be able to hear what they’re going through — the good, the bad, the ugly — I want to hear it, be able to be able to advocate for them, to build policy around, because that’s the way that Congress was designed. It was for the average person to go out and represent the people in places where they come from,” Oshel said.
This story is brought to KXCV-KRNW by The Northwest Missourian, the campus newspaper of Northwest Missouri State University.