Primary election day is on the horizon, as candidates from three parties are working on getting their message out across Missouri’s vast 7th Congressional District.

First-time candidate Joplin small business owner Kristen Radaker-Shafer says that if elected, she’ll bring the experience she had trying to start her own business and the difficult time she had with the process.

“It feels like it’s set up for large businesses to just plug into it with their legal staff and whatever, they can just go and get all the benefits and everything. While small entrepreneurs, we don’t even know what benefits are out there available to us because we’ve never even heard of them.”

In an interview with KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro, Radaker-Shafer described herself as left of center politically, saying that she speaks quote “fluent Republican.” unquote.

She’s taking on Republicans turned Democrats Bryce Lockwood and John Woodman in the August 2 Democratic primary.