How to Win Missouri

The thing to know about Missouri is “it makes no sense.” That’s the caveat Dave Robertson, a keen observer of the state and a leading authority on its elections, offers when discussing Missouri politics. “You’ve got all these different groups and geographies,” says Robertson, the chair of the political science department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

“Southwest Missouri is hardcore Republicans. Kansas City is the nation’s easternmost cow town. St. Louis is its westernmost Rust Belt city. There’s the Delta region in the southeast, wealthy agriculture in the center and the northern part of the state acts a lot like its neighbor Iowa.”

Not only is Missouri a weirdly perfect microcosm of America’s geopolitical tribes, it’s also a state that represents almost precisely one-fiftieth of the U.S. population. Missouri is what Robertson calls “relentlessly average”: It’s in the middle of just about everything you can think of.

For decades, that averageness made Missouri one of the nation’s most reliable bellwethers. With the lone exception of choosing Adlai Stevenson in 1956, Missouri voters successfully picked the winner of a century-worth of American presidents. Then came the 2008 election, when John McCain squeaked the narrowest of victories (winning by 0.13 percent) over Barack Obama.

Missouri has been trending further to the right ever since. While Missouri's demographics once reflected the nation’s, today the state is whiter, older and less educated than most of the country. Missouri has also lagged the nation in adding Hispanic residents. Mitt Romney enjoyed a 9-point margin over Obama in 2012. Four years later, Donald Trump walloped Hillary Clinton, taking the state by an 18.5-point margin. Today, just two Democrats—Auditor Nicole Galloway and Senator Claire McCaskill—hold statewide office. And even that is misleading as Galloway, who’s currently up for election, was appointed to her current term, and McCaskill cruised to victory in 2012 only after her Republican challenger Todd Akin notoriously capsized his campaign with his “legitimate rape” comment.