Lucas Schulze | Sports Archive | Getty Images Eric Greitens, the disgraced former Missouri governor who launched a comeback effort against the wishes of many Republicans, will lose the state’s GOP Senate primary, NBC News reports. Eric Schmidt, currently the state’s attorney general, is expected to advance to the general election, where he will compete against a Democratic candidate for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. The primary results mark a landslide defeat for Greitens, who fully embraced former President Donald Trump and fought recent domestic abuse allegations as he sought to return to the political spotlight. Greitens had announced his bid for the Senate nearly three years after resigning from the governor’s office amid allegations that he blackmailed a hairdresser with whom he had an affair. Greitens admitted to the ordeal but denied threatening to release nude photos he took of her if she revealed the affair. He was charged with felony invasion of privacy related to the alleged extortion. Greitens was also accused of illegally using a charity donor list to help finance his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. Both charges were dropped when Greitens resigned in June 2018. Eric Greitens, Governor of Missouri, is pictured at the Robin Hood Veterans Summit in New York. Craig Barritt | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images Those and other scandals have led mainstream Republicans to worry a Greitens nomination would jeopardize the party’s Senate seat in a state that otherwise reliably votes Republican for high office. Democrats are desperate to retain their slim majority in the Senate, but their control of the chamber is threatened by a challenging political environment, exacerbated by President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and recent economic turmoil. Greitens had fully aligned himself with Trump during his Senate campaign, including Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud plaguing the 2020 presidential election. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., joined his campaign Greitens as national co-chair. However, the former president ultimately did not give Greitens a full endorsement. Instead, he curiously endorsed “Eric” in the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where two of the leading candidates are named Eric. “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this, to make up their own minds,” Trump said in a social media post on the eve of the primary. Both Greitens and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt mocked Trump’s announcement as a personal endorsement. Polling averages from RealClearPolitics showed Greitens had a narrower lead over a leading Democratic primary than either of his two biggest rivals in the Republican primary. After Sheena Greitens filed court documents in March alleging that Eric Greitens abused her and their young son while they were married, many top Republicans called on Greitens to drop out. “If you hit a woman or a child, you belong in handcuffs, not in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who investigated Greitens when he was Missouri attorney general. Blunt himself said Greitens “shouldn’t be running for Senate” if Sheena Greitens’ allegations are true.