Two days ago, we ran a post about veteran Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay (D-St. Louis) running a negative ad against his little-known opponent, which seemed an unnecessary move in a race that appeared the incumbent was positioned to easily win. Now, the Congressman’s strategy makes more sense. Yesterday, the Justice Democrats PAC, at least loosely affiliated with Rep. Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez (D-NY), launched an ad wave in support of challenger Cori Bush in her effort to deny Rep. Clay re-nomination. With this outside organization coming into the race within the last week of the campaign, we can expect much more to follow making this a contest to watch next Tuesday night.
Veteran Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay (D-St. Louis) has launched a personal media attack ad on his Democratic primary opponent, civil rights activist and pastor Cori Bush. The move is an interesting one in that Mr. Clay defeated Ms. Bush, 57-37% in the 2018 Democratic primary, and has a significant fundraising and cash-on-hand edge. With just $127,000 left in her campaign account as reported, it is doubtful that she can launch the type of final week effort to dislodge a ten-term incumbent whose father preceded him in the House with his own 32 year congressional career.
These factors, however, have not stopped Clay in claiming in the ad that Ms. Bush doesn’t really even have a church though she maintains that her occupation is that of a pastor. Garin-Hart-Yang Research conducted a fully online poll of the Missouri electorate (6/16-22; 800 MO likely general election voters; online) and project Joe Biden to be taking a two point 48-46% lead over President Trump in what is still regarded as a safe Republican state. An online poll is typically unreliable and is an unusual vehicle for Garin-Hart-Yang. Six other polls have been conducted of the Show Me State electorate since early April, and all find President Trump maintaining a lead between four and 13 percentage points.
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who resigned over a sex scandal and has recently seen the related legal case against him dropped over prosecutorial misconduct, may be planning to return to active candidate status in 2024. Mr. Greitens had kept his campaign committee open, largely because he could pay legal fees from his political account. Now, however, he has already filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission for an undisclosed 2024 statewide campaign.
While the move allows him to continue raising funds to pay continuing legal expenses from the political fund, Mr. Greitens has also begun to re-surface in public policy discussions. It is too late for him to return to active campaigning in 2020 because he is not an officially filed candidate for the August 4th primary election. That race is features Gov. Mike Parson (R) and consensus Democratic candidate Nicole Galloway who is Missouri’s State Auditor. Mr. Greitens could well be signaling a active comeback attempt in 2024, however. Recently, he publicly criticized Gov. Parson’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, indicating that he would have taken different steps. The We Ask America research organization surveyed the Missouri electorate (5/26-27; 500 MO likely general election voters) and found Gov. Mike Parson (R), who ascended to the Governorship when elected incumbent Eric Greitens resigned two years ago, again posting favorable polling numbers. Against consensus Democratic gubernatorial nominee Nicole Galloway, the Missouri State Auditor, Gov. Parson again has a lead beyond the polling margin of error, 47-39 percent.
Everyday, we see more legislative and judicial action surrounding voting procedures, mostly in response to the COVID-19 virus. In Missouri, a state court’s ruling against expanding absentee mail voting for the upcoming primary election will now be heard by the state Supreme Court.
While the Coronavirus precautions are the reason the lawsuits began, the proponents are invariably trying to take the changes further, wanting them to apply to this year’s general election and likely beyond. The Missouri primary is not until August 4th, but we can still expect a quick ruling coming from the high court since election officials obviously need lead time to send the absentee ballot application forms prior to the actual primary election date. The Missouri Governor’s race hasn’t attracted too much attention so far this year, but a new poll was just released testing Gov. Mike Parson’s (R) political standing. Mr. Parson, then the state’s Lt. Governor, assumed his position when then-Gov. Eric Greitens (R) resigned the office.
The Remington Research Group, polling for the Missouri Scout political blog (4/28-29; 1,356 MO registered voters via automated response device), finds Gov. Parson leading presumed Democratic nominee and state Auditor Nicole Galloway by double-digits, 52-39%. By a margin of 50-40%, the respondents favor Gov. Parson’s plan to reopen the Missouri economy today. Former Vice President Joe Biden placed a strong first in Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri last night, and ran just over six points ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in Idaho, but looks to have fallen short in North Dakota, and possibly Washington.
Still, the delegate totals accumulated from last night and on Super Tuesday suggest that Mr. Biden is building an insurmountable lead and should effectively wrap up the presidential nomination next week when voters in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio go to the polls. The former VP has strong polling leads in each of those places. Remington Research went into the field with an automated response poll right after Super Tuesday (3/4-5; 1,040 MO likely Democratic primary voters) and saw former Vice President Joe Biden expanding his already substantial lead in the Show Me State.
The latest numbers show Mr. Biden increasing his lead to 22 points over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 53-31% in a head-to-head poll as the March 10th vote fast approaches. Missouri has 68 delegates. If the undecideds break in similar fashion, Mr. Biden would reach 63% of the popular vote and accumulate as many as 43 Missouri first ballot bound delegates as compared to Sen. Sanders’ estimated 25. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Ballwin; St. Louis County) had a closer than expected election result in 2018 (51-47%), so significant Democratic challengers coming forward for the next campaign is expected. Cort VanOstran, the 2018 party nominee who climbed to within four points of the incumbent, has already said he will not return for a re-match. St. Sen. Jill Schupp (D-Ladue), on the other hand, is reportedly telling Democratic insiders that she will launch a challenge campaign against Rep. Wagner in the coming weeks and others could soon follow.
We can expect the eventual general election contest to become competitive here, though President Trump is expected to lead a Republican ticket that will do well in Missouri and within the 2nd District. In 2016, Mr. Trump carried MO-2 with a 53-42% margin. Prior to 2018, Rep. Wagner had averaged 60.9% over her three elections. Through the end of September, the Congresswoman had raised $1.6 million for her 2020 campaign and had over $2.1 million in her political account. The Missouri candidate filing deadline is March 31st for the August 4th primary. |
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