Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation hits Missouri, a former swing state where the GOP is now firmly in control. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new data sets; you can also find all of our calculations from 2016 and past cycles here.
While swingy Missouri backed the winning presidential candidate in every election from 1960 to 2004, Democrats picked up the state House in 1948 and the Senate in 1954, and they held both chambers for decades. But things began to change in 1992, when voters passed a term-limits law that gradually forced longtime rural Democrats out of office. The GOP took the Senate in 2000 and the House two years later, and Republic Eric Greitens' victory in last year's governor's race gave Team Red full control of the state government. The GOP holds a 117 to 46 supermajority in the House (Daily Kos Elections assigns vacant seats to the party that last held them) and an even larger 25 to nine edge in the Senate.
It certainly doesn't help Democrats that Missouri has swerved hard to the right in recent years. In 2008, John McCain defeated Barack Obama 49.4-49.2, his only win in a seriously contested state, and the first time ever that a Democratic presidential nominee had won the White House while losing Missouri. Four years later, the Obama campaign focused its efforts elsewhere, and Mitt Romney won 54-44. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 56-38. Trump carried 120 of the 163 House seats and 25 of the 34 Senate districts.
We'll start with a look at the House, which is up every two years. Even though Trump's margin of victory was considerably larger than Romney's, the two carried the same counties, so it's not a surprise that few state House seats switched sides. Trump ended up losing two Romney seats while picking up two Obama districts. The only large shift in this group was HD-10, which is located in Buchanan County north of Kansas City. This seat went from 50-47 Obama to 53-39 Trump, but Democrat Pat Conway won his fourth and final term without any opposition.
The other Obama/Trump seat, HD-29 in the Kansas City area, is held by Democrat Rory Rowland. The seat drifted from 50-48 Obama to 47.4-47.1 Trump, but Rowland also had no opposition. The two Romney/Clinton seats, which were close in both presidential races, are held by Republicans.
In addition to Conway and Rowland, just three Democrats hold Trump seats. The reddest is HD-118, located south of St. Louis. The seat swung from 55-43 Romney to a punishing 71-25 Trump, but Democrat Ben Harris also won his fourth and final term without opposition. HD-21 in the Kansas City area went from 50-48 Romney to 51-42 Trump, but Democrat Ira Anders won his final term 58-42. Mark Ellebracht managed to win his first term 51-46 last year after two very close losses even as his Clay County went from 50-48 Romney to 50-43 Trump. The two Romney/Clinton seats are the only Clinton seats in GOP hands.
Things aren't much different in the Senate. Trump picked up one Obama seat, with the Kansas City-area SD-11 going from 50-48 Obama to 50-44 Trump. However, Democrat John Rizzo won his first term 50-44 last year; no other Democrats represent Trump seats. The one Republican in a Clinton seat is freshman Caleb Rowden, who holds the Columbia-area SD-11. This seat backed Obama 48.68-48.65 and Clinton 47-46, but Rowden won 51-49 last year. Half the Senate is up in presidential years, while the other half is up in midterm cycles.
While the GOP-led legislature, with the help of a few Democrats, passed their congressional map over Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's veto in 2011, things worked differently for the legislative lines. After the bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on new maps, a backup commission of six appellate judges took over. The judge's state House map took effect after unsuccessful lawsuits to block it. However, after the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the court-drawn Senate map, Nixon appointed a new bipartisan redistricting commission, which eventually agreed on the current state Senate lines.
Even though neither legislative map was a GOP gerrymander, the lines give Republicans a built-in edge. One way to illustrate this is to sort each seat in the House by Clinton's margin of victory over Trump to see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted. Because the Senate has an even number of seats, we average the two middle seats to come up with the median point in the chamber. The median House seat backed Trump 63-32, well to the right of his 56-38 statewide win, while the median point in the Senate supported Trump 64-31.
However, Missouri is a state where geography gives the GOP a huge advantage. Clinton, like Obama four years before, carried St. Louis City and St. Louis County on the eastern side of the state, Kansas City and the rest of Jackson County on the west, Columbia's Boone county in the middle, and nothing else.
Even 2016 Democratic Senate nominee Jason Kander, who lost to Republican incumbent Roy Blunt just 49-46, had a similar issue. The only Romney/Trump counties that Kander carried are Platte and Clay, which are both located near Kansas City. As long as Democrats remain packed into just a few areas, they're going to have a tough time winning back the legislature under a non-partisan map even if Missouri becomes more competitive in presidential races.