Now for something completely local.
The Missouri State House has 163 members, 97 are Republicans and 66 are Democrats.
Filing for the November elections closes on Tuesday.
Right now, 61 of 97 Republicans have challengers aaaand
13 of 66 Democrats have challengers.
More under the fold (including lots of info)!
I'll list the 13 opposed state Democrats and the 36 unopposed state Republicans.
The 13 districts held by Democrats with Republican opponents:
6th (Bringer), 9th (Open), 10th (Witte), 11th (Open), 29th (Rucker), 53rd (Dougherty), 90th (Open), 93rd (Bogetto), 101st (Meadows), 105th (Frame), and 132nd (Dake)
Dake and Bogetto are new members (elected in special elections after 11/2004).
Of course, some reasons for this include..
#1 - Nobody likes Matt Blunt enough these days to run against a Democrat.
#2 - Most of the Democratic seats are never going to go to the GOP anyways (STL/KC)
#3 - Most of the people who would file for no-hoper races won't file until next Tuesday.
Now, before we get to the 36 unopposed, let's display the GOP-held seats which got a Democratic challenger from the 17th to the 23rd (The Incumbent's name is in ()'s):
4th (open), 8th (Chinn), 35th (Ervin), 54th (Dusenberg), 68th (Sater), 112th (Loehner), 114th (Deeken), 143rd (Wallace), 145th (Cunningham), 146th (Pollock), 149th, (May), and 160th (Open)
For those of you not counting along, that's 12 seats in a week.
Now, to the 36 Republicans without opponents, divided by region:
Northern Missouri (everything north of the Missouri, not including the KC and STL areas):
- The 2nd District (open seat). The district is made up of Putnam and Adair County, and a part of Sullivan county. Major city: Kirksville.
- The 20th district (Danie Moore of Fulton). This district is made up of most of the Kingdom of Callaway, including Westminster College (site of the Iron Curtain Speech).
- The 22nd district (Therese Sander of Moberly). This district is made up of Chariton and Randolph counties, with a sliver of Macon County. The major city is Moberly.
St. Charles County:
- The 12th district (open seat).
- The 13th district (open seat). This district is made up of parts of St. Charles and Warren counties. Major city: Wentzville.
- The 18th district (Tom Dempsey of St. Charles).
- The 109th district (Kevin Threlkeld of Washington). This is actually a combo of St. Charles and Franklin counties.
Kansas City and Jackson County:
- The 38th district (Ryan Silvey of Kansas City). This district is made up of a chunk of Clay County, which is really a part of Kansas City too.
- The 56th district (Brian Yates of Lees Summit). This district is made up of Northern Lees Summit (around 470) and Southeastern Jackson County (Lone Jack).
- The 123rd district (Brian Baker of Belton). Yep, this is a Belton-based district.
St. Louis:
- The 84th district (Allen Icet of Wildwood).
- The 86th district (Jane Cunningham of Chesterfield).
- The 88th district (Neal St. Onge of Ballwin).
- The 89th district (Suburban St. Louis open seat, includes Eureka).
- The 92th district (Charles Portwood of Ballwin).
- The 95th district (Jim Avery of St. Louis).
West-Central Missouri:
- The 116th district (Tom Self of Cole Camp). This includes Warsaw, MO.
- The 119th district (Larry Wilson of Flemington). This district includes lakes, Hickory county, St. Clair county, and Delbert Scott's house.
- The 133rd district (Mike Parson of Bolivar). This includes Cedar and Polk counties.
- The 155th district (Wayne Cooper of Camdenton). This district includes Camden county.
Southwestern Missouri:
1. The 62nd district (Dennis Wood of Kimberling City). This district is made up of Stone and Taney Counties, including Branson.
2/3/4/5/6/7 - The 126th district (Ed Emery of Lamar), The 127th district (Steve Hunter of Joplin), The 128th district (Bryan Stevenson of Webb City), The 129th district (Ron Richard of Joplin), The 130th district (Kevin Wilson of Neosho), and the 131st district (Marilyn Ruestman of Joplin). There, I just saved myself from writing 6 straight "paragraphs" on Southwest Missouri.
- - The 140th district (Bob Dixon of Springfield)
- - The 142nd district (Ray Weter of Nixa)
- - The 144th district (Van Kelly of Norwood)
Southeastern Missouri:
- The 106th district (Steven Tilley of Perryville). The district is in Perry County and in the Cape Giraudeau area.
- The 111th district (Charlie Schlottach of Owensville). This is also in Franklin county, with a part of Gasconade county. I could have put this in the St. Louis list too.
- The 148th district (David Day of Dixon). A part of Pulaski county makes up this district.
- The 151st district (Ward Franz of West Planes). You could put this Howell county based district in either Southeast or Southwest Missouri, but I want to inflate the Southeast list a bit.
- The 157th district (Scott Lipke of Jackson). This district is in Cape Giraudeau County, but the actual city is in another district.
- The 159th district (Billy Pat Wright of Dexter). This is a district in Stoddard county.
Now, let me close this by posting the number of uncontested Missouri house districts in 2004.
Districts without a Democratic candidate: 32
Districts without a Republican candidate: 28
Right now, I would say that the smart bet is on the Dems getting more than 131 candidates. We're at 127 right now.
The Republicans shot at topping 135? Hm.. I wouldn't expect that. They have 110 right now.
And I don't feel like making this longer by posting 2004 percentages with state house races in those 36 districts.
(I'm not posting the 2002 numbers because they'll be skewed upwards due to the huge number of open seats)
So indeed.
In closing, I would say that Missouri is going to be casting a lot of ballots for the Democrats, especially due to Blunt (who is still generally unliked).
And as well, we have quite a few candidates. And about 3 days left too.
Comment away!