Missouri bucks national trend in some races

Despite electing Democrats like Nixon, GOP state legislators retained majorities.

By Andrew Denney

Published Nov. 7, 2008

With the election of a Democratic president and larger Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, many of the country's districts turned from red to blue on Election Day.

Missouri, however, bucked the trend - and its status as the country's bellwether state - by picking Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the race by a razor-thin margin and performing better than expected in statehouse elections.

Democrats picked up four of the five statewide offices in Missouri, but Republicans made gains in the Senate and held on to their majority in the House.

Attorney General Jay Nixon was elected governor on Tuesday by wide margin over Republican candidate U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof from the state's 9th Congressional District. He was the only Democratic gubernatorial candidate to win a Republican-held seat.

Secretary of State Robin Carnahan won re-election with 61 percent of the vote, state Rep. Clint Zweifel, D-Florissant, won the State Treasurer seat and Chris Koster, a state senator from Harrisonville who switched to the Democratic Party last year, won the highly-contentious race for attorney general.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, won re-election.

Democrats picked up three seats in the House, but the GOP still holds a clear majority, outnumbering the Democrats 89-74. In addition, Republicans picked up three seats in the Missouri Senate, bringing the number of GOP state senators to 23, compared to 11 for the Democrats.

Karl Kurtz, director of the National Council of State Legislatures, said contrary to the expected coattails effect of President-elect Barack Obama's decisive victory, Democrats made a net gain of 102 seats in state legislatures across the country.

"Not exactly a sweep for the Democrats," Kurtz said, noting that Obama's victory might have had a reverse coattails effect in states like Tennessee and Oklahoma, where Republicans picked up majorities.

In the 19th state Senate District, which encompasses Columbia, Democratic candidates have won by considerable majorities in past elections. This year, the seat went to Kurt Schaefer, a self-described moderate Republican and an attorney that has worked for Nixon's office and for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

State Sen. Victor Callahan, D-Independence, who was elected Minority Floor Leader by Democrats in the Senate on Thursday, said he is "cautiously optimistic" about the coming session.

"I think the overwhelming majority of Missourians wanted both parties to come down and work together," Callahan said. "We don't have time for partisan bickering."

George Connor, a political science professor at Missouri State University, said he hopes to see a bipartisan effort in Jefferson City next year.

"If they don't, it shows that party is more important that public policy," he said.

Cooperation between Nixon and the Republican-dominated legislature might also be helped, Connor said, because he is more conservative than the average Democrat.

Since he became attorney general in 1993, Nixon has presided over 59 executions, seven of which occurred in the last five years. In 1996, Nixon went to court to end a mandatory desegregation program for St. Louis schools in which thousands of students attending inner-city public schools were bussed to predominately white schools in St. Louis County.

However, he has taken less conservative stances on social welfare issues.

Nixon has called for the reinstatement of cuts to the state Medicaid program, and during this gubernatorial campaign he proposed a higher education affordability plan that would allow students that complete the A+ Schools Program and two years of community college to attend a two-year or four-year university in the state tuition free.

David Robertson, a political science professor at UM-St. Louis, said Nixon would likely look for additional funding for higher education, but "might have to reach an agreement" with the legislature because of budget concerns in the next fiscal year.

"He'll have to modify it to get it through the state legislature," Robertson said. "They're going to work to find ways to save students money."