MO-SEN 2022 megathread: ERIC

[Hope For A New Era]

I think a couple of months ago I saw some suggestion that Clint Zweifel, the former state Treasurer, was being courted as the Democratic candidate in this race.  He's probably the only Democrat who could make this even close to competitive.  Anybody heard any new word on this?

He has been completely silent on the issue. It seems like the state party has already fully unified around Scott Sifton. Galloway is probably the most powerful D-MO endorsement nowadays, and she endorsed him the day he announced his campaign. It's pretty clear that it was an organized, coordinated effort. I'm not sure why they've basically anointed a random no-name former state legislator, but he seems like a reasonably good candidate. The only stronger ones would be the D statewide officeholders from before 2016.

[MarkD]

Here's some more background on Scott Sifton.

His first election to any office was in April, 2001, to the Affton School Board.

A year later, he ran for state reprsentative in District 91, which has a few precincts in common with Affton School District. Most of the house district is dominated by the city of Webster Groves. Scott was unopposed in the Democratic primary. District 91 had a long Republican history before Scott tried to win there in 2002. The precincts that made up that district had voted for Bob Dole in 1996, and for Bush in 2000, as well as most of the rest of the Republican ticket in 2000. Scott lost the 2002 race in District 91 with only 42.45% of the vote. At the same time Scott was losing that race, a couple of other Democrats were winning election to other house districts nearby -- Pat Yaeger won in District 96 (which also shares a few precincts with the Affton School District) and Sue Schoemel won in District 100, which was a Republican-leaning state rep. district in the southernmost part of St. Louis County. Yaeger and Schoemel went on to win re-election in 2004, 2006, and 2008, so they were ultimately term-limited in 2010.

In the meantime, Scott went on to win re-election to the Affton School Board in April 2004, and again in April, 2007. As of 2010, he decided not to run for the school board again, and instead set his sights on District 96, since it was open, given that Yaeger was term-limited. He was unopposed in that Democratic primary too, and he easily won the general election with 58.20% of the vote.

But with only one term in the House, he decided next to run for Senate District 1 in 2012. The incumbent senator there was Republican Jim Lembke, who had won in 2008 by only 70 votes out of over 88,000 votes cast. Redistricting in 2011-2012 had made District 1 more Democratic than it had been during the previous decade. Sifton did not have a free pass at the Democatic nomination: former state rep. Sue Schoemel, who was out of office for two years, also filed to run for that senate seat. But in the Democratic primary, Sifton beat Schoemel with 54.93% of the vote. Then in the general election that year, Sifton narrowly beat incumbent Lembke with 50.91%. At the same time, Obama was narrowly beating Romney in the district, 50.52% to 47.85%, and most of the rest of the Democratic ticket was winning in District 1 as well, by wider margins than either Obama or Sifton.

Four years later, in 2016, Sifton ran for re-election, and he beat his Republican opponent -- Dr. Randy Jotte, MD -- with 53.09% of the vote. At the same time Sifton was winning by a little over 6 percentage points, Hillary Clinton was winning the district by only 3 percentage points. (BTW, by 2016, Dr. Jotte was turning into something of a perennial candidate. He won his first try for an office in April 2004, winning election to the nonpartisan position of Webster Groves City Council. Four years later, he ran as a Republican for state rep. in the same district that Sifton had run in in 2002 -- District 91. Jotte became the first Republican nominee to ever lose a general election to the state representative district that encompasses Webster Groves. He did pretty well, but lost with only 48.61%. District 91 was clearly shifting more Democratic during the 2000's, and by 2020 was quite firmly Democratic. Two years later, Dr. Jotte ran as the Republican nominee for St. Louis County Council District 5, but lost that race as well with only 47%. Then two years after that, in 2012, he ran in the Republican primary for Missouri Congressional District 2, but came in a very distant second place to Ann Wagner. Jotte has not run for any other office since he lost to Sifton in 2016.)

Term limits prevented him for running for District 1 again in 2020, and Sifton let it be known he was considering running for Governor. But when Nicole Galloway declared she was running, he dropped out and endorsed her.

Winning one term as a state representative with 58.20%, then winning two terms as a state senator, the first one by only 50.91% and the second one by 53.09%, is not much of a base to run on for a statewide office.

[Pollster]

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/1382766830704500737?s=21

[Frenchrepublican]

Greitens raised only $27k, and most of it was from self funding
https://twitter.com/BryanLowry3/status/1382819802931208194?s=20

[Frenchrepublican]

https://twitter.com/JamesArkin/status/1383051115248427009?s=20

[Brittain33]

If anyone has good, non-Blunt-marijuana-joke suggestions for a thread title, I will update

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

If anyone has good, non-Blunt-marijuana-joke suggestions for a thread title, I will update

Senator’s career comes to a Blunt End

MO-22 May the Bluntest Republican win

The Blunting of the Republican Party/The Bluntening 

[Storr]

If anyone has good, non-Blunt-marijuana-joke suggestions for a thread title, I will update

Senator’s career comes to a Blunt End

MO-22 May the Bluntest Republican win

The Blunting of the Republican Party/The Bluntening 

Pass the Blunt

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/VickyPJWard/status/1384203339378749452?s=20

[tmthforu94]

KC Mayor marries longtime girlfriend, a move that possibly foreshadows a Senate run. Also, they gave birth to a newborn baby over the weekend.

https://www.kmbc.com/article/kansas-city-mayor-quinton-lucas-marries-longtime-girlfriend-in-civil-ceremony-katherine-carttar-1618869966/36167596

[Storr]

"Mark McCloskey, gun-toting St. Louis lawyer, considering Senate bid
“I can confirm that it’s a consideration, yes,” McCloskey said in a brief interview on Tuesday evening."

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/20/mark-mccloskey-senate-missouri-483924

[GALeftist]

If anyone has good, non-Blunt-marijuana-joke suggestions for a thread title, I will update

MO Dems dead due to Blunt force trauma / just Blunt Force Trauma

[ctherainbow]

https://twitter.com/VickyPJWard/status/1384203339378749452?s=20

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is US Senate not a statewide race?  Why would you have a "national" chair for your campaign?        For fundraising?  It just sounds like one of those titles made up to hand out to somebody.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/VickyPJWard/status/1384203339378749452?s=20

Is he her next beau?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/VickyPJWard/status/1384203339378749452?s=20

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is US Senate not a statewide race?  Why would you have a "national" chair for your campaign?        For fundraising?  It just sounds like one of those titles made up to hand out to somebody.

Fundraisers, out of state volunteers, national media coverage probably

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1390349202853617668?s=20

Hartzler is mostly rurals in central west Missouri with a few Kansas City exurbs.

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1390349202853617668?s=20

Hartzler is mostly rurals in central west Missouri with a few Kansas City exurbs.

She's the one who defeated longtime Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton, who was a Blue Dog Democrat, back in 2010.

[Drew]

If anyone has good, non-Blunt-marijuana-joke suggestions for a thread title, I will update

Bluntly Speaking

[ElectionsGuy]

This primary is a mess.

[Canis]

D's need to run a candidate whose competent if Greitens wins the nomination this race could absolutely become competitive the R's would definitely still be favored in a state as Red as MO. But anything can happen so I really hope the D's find a good recruit for here.

[Lognog]

This primary is a mess.

This is before they even start attacking each other

[MarkD]

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1390349202853617668?s=20

Hartzler is mostly rurals in central west Missouri with a few Kansas City exurbs.

She's the one who defeated longtime Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton, who was a Blue Dog Democrat, back in 2010.

Technically, Ike wasn't a Blue Dog. I just checked the Blue Dog Coalition's website for past members, starting from the group's origin in 1995 and every roster of its members through 2010, and Ike Skelton was never listed. And I remember thinking, back before he lost re-election, that it was so odd that Ike had one of the most conservative voting records of any Democrat, but he never officially joined the Blue Dogs.

To ifromnj: Although rural counties dominate the 4th District of Missouri, don't forget that the biggest county in the entire district is Boone County, dominated by the city of Columbia. And Boone County has voted against Hartzler in three of the last five elections.

The political issue I most closely associate Vicky Hartzler in my mind is "traditional marriage" and being generally opposed to anything that smacks of equal rights for gay people. I associate her with those issues, because that was the first thing I ever heard about her when she first ran for state representative way back in 1994. It certainly did not endear me to her when I heard that.

[MT Treasurer]

Unpopular opinion: Greitens wouldn’t do worse than Blunt in a general election, and the race wouldn’t be any more likely to flip with Greitens than with Blunt. I could see it turning out to be more competitive than IA regardless of candidates in those two states (this wouldn’t be surprising at all), but that’s like saying CO is more competitive than IL.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Unpopular opinion: Greitens wouldn’t do worse than Blunt in a general election, and the race wouldn’t be any more likely to flip with Greitens than with Blunt. I could see it turning out to be more competitive than IA regardless of candidates in those two states (this wouldn’t be surprising at all), but that’s like saying CO is more competitive than IL.

All the Ds were trailing by double digits in MO, D's are spending all their money on Tim Ryan, Nan Whaley, Charlie Crist and Cheri Beasley.

It would not be prudent for anyone to donate to MO where Trump was ahead of Biden by plus 15 or to spend money on FL against Marco Rubio

If Sand or Franken gets into IA, I will donate there as well

[Hope For A New Era]

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1390349202853617668?s=20

Hartzler is mostly rurals in central west Missouri with a few Kansas City exurbs.

She's just the worst. In every way.

Discount Joni Ernst with extra climate change denial.