Supporters of a ballot measure to expand Medicaid to 230,000 Missourians are airing their first TV ad ahead of next month's vote. The spot's narrator says that Amendment 2, as the measure is known, would "fix" the problem of Missouri's federal tax dollars helping to pay for health care in other states by bringing those funds "back to Missouri." The remainder of the ad argues that the amendment would "protect thousands of healthcare jobs," "help keep our rural hospitals open," and "deliver healthcare to more veterans and hardworking Missouri families."
There hasn't been any public polling on the issue, but efforts to expand Medicaid have performed well at the ballot box. Three red states states—Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska—all voted to expand the program in 2018, and just last month, voters in neighboring Oklahoma did so as well.
Koch-backed conservative groups unsuccessfully sought to block the Missouri measure from the ballot in court, but supporters have castigated Republican Gov. Mike Parson for moving the vote from November to the Aug. 4 primary, charging that Parson did so in the hopes that lower turnout would help defeat the amendment. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, another Republican, also made the unusual decision to schedule his state's Medicaid vote to coincide with the primary rather than the general election, but the measure nonetheless passed by a narrow 50.5 to 49.5 margin.