Why is Missouri trending Republican so rapidly?

[LeRaposa]

Missouri is quite rural and rural areas have strongly trended Republican over the past decade.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

MO was always GOP, since 1968, it just voted for Carter and Clinton due to their pragmatism.  It is part of the South

[538Electoral]

It's mainly rural and white. There you go. It has all the qualities of a Republican state.

[pbrower2a]

MO is an incredibly interesting state politically. Its sort of the anti-California, where CA represents the epiphany of the weaknesses of the Republican Party(lack of minority outreach, terrible performances in urban areas, rapidly D trending suburbs), MO represents the epiphany of the Democratic Party's electoral weaknesses.

MO wasnt always such a Safely Republican state, however. The state was known for being a bellwether for the nation, perfectly in the middle. Think of it as OH or FL. But 3 main factors caused it to head towards the Rs at a rapid pace.

1. Evangelicals- There was once a time where Evangelicals formed the backbone of the Democratic Party, along with the Southern states. These days, however, are over, with Evangelicals providing Republicans with their best margins of any demographic group. The problem for Democrats is how Evangelical the state is:


Besides the Core Metros in the East and West, most of the state subscribes to the faith, making D outreach in the region rather poor.

2. Urban Decline- In the late 1900s, much of the United States faced a conundrum known as Urban Decline. Basically, the cities of the US started to bleed population, and the rurals/exurbs/suburbs grew in size. Of course, that was back in the 1900s, and most urban areas have made a large comeback. But poor MO, with St. Louis and Kansas, never saw an increase in urban areas. In fact, the rurals and exurbs have only increased in population, which makes winning the state a bit difficult for a party that gets its support from Urbanites.

3. Geographic Trends- As we all know, politics are becoming more and more split geographically, with rurals moving right, along with exurbs and small towns, with more suburban, largely populated areas moving left. Well, for Democrats, MO gave them the worst of both worlds. For the rural areas, the shift here was immensely fast, moving R at an unheard of pace. Now, of course, this could be countered by the suburbs around St. Louis moving towards the Ds. The only problem is that the suburbs in MO didnt, and still dont, function like OH suburbs, basically moving D, but at a snail's pace. This does mean, however, that the state will move Left, eventually, but thats a long way's away.

This isnt to say that MO is AL levels of unwinnable for Democrats, they just saw their auditor get reelected. But that same election, their highest ranking official, Claire McCaskill, went down in defeat, going from the unstoppable witch of MO, to just another gain for the Republican Party.

1. One could hardly say it better. Carter in 1976 won all states in which even a third of all counties have a current plurality of Southern Baptists except Illinois (the population center is of course Chicagoland), Oklahoma, and Virginia. Clinton did not win Oklahoma, North Carolina, or Virginia either time, but he did win Illinois twice.

Most counties in America have a plurality of Catholics, but this reflects in most places a diversity of religious identity. In most counties there might be four or five main denominations, but the Catholic Church is the largest in most. Except where Hispanics are the majority, the Catholic Church itself reflects ethnic diversity that still reflects people of French, Irish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Portuguese, Croatian, Lithuanian, Austrian, Filipino, Vietnamese, or Belgian heritage (and lots of German-Americans) -- and Hispanics, who themselves may have much ethnic diversity.

Never forget -- the United States is more a Catholic country than anything else, and that those people who mock New York City by changing the "N" to a "J" ignore that New York City is more Puerto Rican than Jewish.

Where there is religious diversity in America, tolerance is part of the culture. Where there is little diversity, people can get comfortable with expressing bigoted and reactionary ideas. Diversity compels people to think outside narrow boxes. But note well: although most religious bodies have some respect for the intellect, Southern Baptists don't, on the whole. Yes, Catholics have some odd theology by Protestant standards, but at the least the Catholic Church is generally for the development of the intellect. The greater the education a Catholic has, the more likely he is to know what the Catholic Church teaches and to assimilate that. The Catholic Church rejects such junk as Young-Earth Creationism because such might give smart kids cause to rebel against Church teachings on practically else. Southern Baptists seem to act as if any intellectual activity that challenges even the weakest material in the Bible (six days of Creation, extreme lifespans of Biblical patriarchs, the worldwide flood of Noah) is a threat to Christian faith.

2/3. I'm not familiar with Kansas City, but I do not see its urban surroundings as a growth area. St. Louis is one of the cities most characteristic of the problems of the Rust Belt. It has relied heavily upon industries that have faded in importance. Even its once-biggest brewery (Anheuser-Bush) is losing market share in a modest-growth industry. Its suburbs are aging rapidly, and are often in advanced stages of rot. Do you remember Ferguson?

The combination of economic distress and close-minded attitudes have tended to push people to the Right, complete with economic sadism. Thus Donald Trump, the definitive sadist in American politics, can win.   

 


 

 

[Tekken_Guy]

Support for the Democrats has tanked in the rural areas. McCaskill got virtually no support outside the STL/KC areas, Columbia, and maybe parts of Springfield and Jefferson City. The only reason she was re-elected in the first place was because of Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin. Dems are definitely making big gains in well-educated affluent suburbs of St. Louis and Kansas City, but those two metros are hardly the dominant force in Missouri like Chicago, the Twin Cities, or even Phoenix are in their states (and most of the educated KC suburbs are in Kansas, not Missouri).

[lfromnj]

also even a lot of the suburban part of MO Is trending R. See Jefferson County.

[OSR stands with Israel]

MO was always GOP, since 1968, it just voted for Carter and Clinton due to their pragmatism.  It is part of the South

From 1968-2004 Carter and Clinton were the only Democrats to win Presidential Elections period, so MO didnt vote differently than the nation as a whole did during that period.

[MarkD]

I tallied all votes cast in Missouri for President in the last 4 elections, the U.S. Senate races from 2002 to 2018, the U.S. House races from 2002 to 2018, all six of the state executive offices in Missouri from 2002 to 2018 (Governor, Lt. Gov. Sec. of State, Treasurer, Atty. Gen., and Auditor (I did not count the 2014 Auditor race - no Democrat ran for that office that year)), and all state legislative races from 2002 to 2018. I only included in the tallies the votes cast for Democrats and Republicans; I left out the votes for Libertarians and other candidates.
 2002: 49.08% for Republicans, 50.92% for Democrats.
 2004: 51.00% for Republicans, 49.00% for Democrats.
 2006: 48.99% for Republicans, 51.01% for Democrats.
 2008: 46.32% for Republicans, 53.68% for Democrats.
 2010: 58.70% for Republicans, 41.30% for Democrats.
 2012: 49.84% for Republicans, 50.16% for Democrats.
 2014: 65.99% for Republicans, 34.01% for Democrats.
 2016: 57.84% for Republicans, 42.16% for Democrats.
 2018: 53.76% for Republicans, 46.24% for Democrats.

Obviously, the years of strong Republican trend were 2010, 2014, and 2016. But even just last November, the trend came noticeably back towards the Dems, particularly thanks to Auditor Galloway's successful campaign, and the fact that the Dems were aggressively trying to win more state legislative seats, even though they weren't successful there. Just the effort they put into trying resulted in an increased share of the vote for them. I wouldn't write off the Missouri Democratic Party just yet. Look at those numbers for 2018 again and compare them to 2016.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

C'mon, when half the state is practically Arkansas, are you really surprised? It blows my mind to see folks call it a Midwestern state when culturally, it is Southern outside of the STL Metro and KC. I heard more Southern accents here than even Houston sometimes.

Even if I agreed with the bolded (I'd argue that Northern Missouri has a lot in common with Southern Iowa ...

I've been to northern Missouri. I've been to southern Iowa. I'm going to call nope on that one.  I have never seen gas stations with analog mechanical dials and dirt floors inside, in the current decade, anywhere in Iowa.

Got off the Interstate and onto the side roads cutting across northern Missouri. It was like a developing country.

[pbrower2a]

Southern Baptists are strong in Missouri up to the Missouri-Iowa state line. Southern Baptist influence is practically nil in southern Iowa.

Missouri was a slave state. That is obvious enough in the Southeast, practically an extension of Mississippi. It is surprising how far north the 'peculiar institution' reached in Missouri.   

[Del Tachi]

Southern Baptists are strong in Missouri up to the Missouri-Iowa state line. Southern Baptist influence is practically nil in southern Iowa.

Missouri was a slave state. That is obvious enough in the Southeast, practically an extension of Mississippi. It is surprising how far north the 'peculiar institution' reached in Missouri.   

So Missouri is trendy rapidly towards the Republicans in 2019 because slavery was legal there 160 years ago.

Ok, got it

[pbrower2a]

Southern Baptists are strong in Missouri up to the Missouri-Iowa state line. Southern Baptist influence is practically nil in southern Iowa.

Missouri was a slave state. That is obvious enough in the Southeast, practically an extension of Mississippi. It is surprising how far north the 'peculiar institution' reached in Missouri.   

So Missouri is trendy rapidly towards the Republicans in 2019 because slavery was legal there 160 years ago.

Ok, got it

Virginia had slaves. too, and it has drifted D while Missouri has drifted R.

Southern Baptists have more to do with Missouri drifting R than with the former 'Peculiar Institution". Also significant is the decline of the mining industry in Missouri. See also  West Virginia which refused to fight for Southern planters, and Kentucky, also a state with a declining mining industry. 

[pppolitics]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-missouris-move-to-the-right-a-question-of-how-far/amp/

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Overwhelmingly white, large baptist/evangelical population, large rural population. The prominence of the Baptist church in Missouri probably explains why its rural white areas are closer to a place like Oklahoma or Arkansas politically instead of Ohio, Indiana or downstate Illinois.

[QAnonKelly]

St Louis just keeps bleeding population too...

[Suburbia]

https://twitter.com/LynzforCongress/status/1326923406902767616

It's sad.

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/LynzforCongress/status/1326923406902767616

It's sad.

The whole thread is worth a read, and what she says applies not just to Missouri but Kentucky as well. I imagine many other formerly D-leaning states that have trended hard R in recent years too.

Here it is unrolled:

https://unrollthread.com/t/1326923396177911808/