On behalf of the people of Missouri, 3CM the loser wishes to apologize to the USA, for a number of failings here in MO in this year’s midterms. The biggest failing is, of course, the defeat of Claire McCaskill in her re-election bid to the US Senate, and the election of wingnut dingbat Josh Hawley (who will probably run for POTUS one day, and could win – don’t laugh). The totals, prior to the scheduled official certification at the end of this month and the counting of military and overseas ballots, were as follows, per the Missouri Secretary of State’s website (total votes to date, 2,428,926)
Hawley: 1,249,854 (51.457%)
McCaskill: 1,103,461 (45.430%)
Per this post from the same website:
“According to unofficial results, statewide voter turnout was 57.9 percent.”
For a US midterm election, 57.9% turnout is actually pretty amazing. However, compared to Claire’s last election in 2012, she lost about 350,000 votes by comparison. In 2012, to be sure, she had President Obama’s coattails to ride, even if he didn’t carry the state. More importantly, of course, there was the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” foot-in-mouth factor 6 years ago. Neither of those factors came into play this year, as Hawley didn’t pull an Akin at any point, and there was no other top-line Democrat at the top of the MO ticket to pull Claire along. Claire was the top-line Democrat in MO.
When you do the math, you see that Claire lost by 146,393 votes. Here’s where this diary’s title begins to come into play. Those who remember back to Claire’s first bid in 2006 will remember that the magic formula was overwhelming turnout in the Blue cities of KC and STL to counterbalance the deep, dumb Red of rural MO. It worked in 2006, and sufficiently also in 2012. But that formula didn’t work this time. For proof, here are numbers for KC, MO:
Hawley: 20,464 (18.32%)
McCaskill: 88,664 (79.37%)
Looked at only in terms of % values, it’s pretty impressive that Claire thumped Hawley by more than 4:1 in KC. But that ratio isn’t the most important number from KC, MO. The truly important numbers are:
KC, MO Registered voters, Total = 226,743
KC, MO Ballots cast = 112,253
KC, MO Voter turnout = 49.51%
Yes, you read that correctly. LESS THAN 50% OF REGISTERED KC, MO VOTERS SHOWED UP. Or, in other words, 114,490 KC, MO citizens threw away their votes. (OK, this is a midterm, where turnout is traditionally lower, and in any other midterm year, 49.51% would be pretty impressive. But this was not just any midterm year, because of a Democratic US Senate seat at stake.)
And yes, for the numerically observant, even if all 114,490 of those KC, MO voters had shown to vote for Claire, that alone would not have put her over the top to a 3rd US Senate term. Here’s where the other big Blue island in MO comes into play, on the other side of the state. To start one that, here are the vote totals for St. Louis City:
Hawley: 15,898 (13.86%)
McCaskill: 96,296 (83.96%)
STL City Registered voters, Total: 194,618
Total votes cast in STL City: 115,245
Voter turnout, STL City: 59.22%
So STL City beat out KC, MO in voter turnout by 10%, with a smaller overall voter base of 32,125 people. In fact, the absolute number turnout in STL City was higher compared to KC, MO.
Granted, just like in KC, MO, even if all 194,618 registered voters in STL City had shown up, not all of them would have voted for Claire. But if you take both KC, MO and STL, and take the same proportions of Hawley:McCaskill voters from those who didn’t show up, here’s what you get:
KC, MO
Total no-shows: 114,490
Theoretical % of Hawley voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 20,975
Theoretical % of McCaskill voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 93,515
STL City:
Total no-shows: 79,373
Theoretical % of Hawley voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 11,001
Theoretical % of McCaskill voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 68,372
So adding these numbers to the actual overall MO turnout for both candidates:
Hawley: 1,249,854 + 20,975 + 11,001 = 1,281,830 (50.323%)
McCaskill: 1,103,461 + 93.515 + 68,372 = 1,265,348 (49.677%)
So we’re still not there yet, as this squeaker scenario still wouldn’t have been quite enough to put Claire over the top, in this pointlessly theoretical exercise. But let’s add one more factor, namely St. Louis County, which is generally Democratic and Blue, if not quite so Democratic and Blue as STL City. Here are numbers for STL County:
Hawley: 161,171 (35.91%)
McCaskill: 277,927 (61.92%)
STL County registered voters: 664,834
Total votes cast in STL County: 451,198
STL County voter turnout: 67.87%
So STL County surpassed both STL City and KC, MO in terms of %, handily. You all see, however, that the % of Hawley voters in STL County is not far from triple the % of McCaskill voters. But let’s do that uselessly hypothetical number-crunching now with the STL County no-shows:
STL County:
Total no-shows: 213,636
Theoretical % of Hawley voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 69,535
Theoretical % of McCaskill voters, assuming same % from actual turnout: 124,101
So let’s now add these speculative numbers into the earlier speculative numbers:
Hawley: 1,281,830 + 69,535 = 1,351,365 (49.305%)
McCaskill: 1,265,348 + 124,101 = 1,389,449 (50.695%)
So there you have it, in a way. Had every single Democratic-inclined MO voter in the 2 major cities, as well as their suburbs, shown up and voted for McCaskill, she had a reasonable chance of prevailing, if only by a whisker, and we would not have US Senator-elect Josh Hawley now. But not enough of the Blue crowd in the big cities showed up, and we do have US Senator-elect Josh Hawley now. Remember that overall turnout in the state was 57.9%, and KC, MO fell well short of that %. STL City held steady by comparison. The higher urban turnout scenario back in 2006, and probably in 2012, that put Claire over the top then, failed to materialize in 2018, and knocked her down. Of course, self the loser does not include himself in the no-shows, since he did show up and vote in the mid-morning or so. I even saw a neighbor there, with family, so that both parents voted Democratic.
However, the rural MO-ron fools completely happy and thrilled beyond belief (and rationality) with Traitor Drumpf weren’t such fools as not to show up – unlike too many of the supposedly more “hip” city slickers. The MO Democrats flamed out pretty spectacularly on the state level, as Jason Rosenbaum of St. Louis Public Radio noted here:
“Democrats were bullish that a wobbly national environment for Republicans would finally give them an opening to pick up some state legislative seats. But it wasn’t to be, as the GOP was able to prevent Democrats from gaining any seats in the House or Senate.”
In other words, the Repukes still have rock-solid mega-majorities in both houses of the MO General Assembly. Furthermore, our side lost a precious US Senate seat to an empty-headed pretty-boy fundie bigot doofus who’s headed onward and upward, and we may have unleashed an national ideological monster for the long-term. In short, we MO city slickers failed the state, and the country, this midterm. In particular, KC, MO fell short, just as they did in 2016, which basically makes this the same diary 2 years later, but with more dire consequences.
I’d predicted in earlier diaries that any 2018 Blue Wave would come to a crashing halt in MO. How sadly correct that turned out to be. As various commentators locally have noted, even if MO voted Blue or Purple on issues like medical marijuana, campaign finance and ethics reform, many of those same voters also voted for Repuke candidates who oppose all such reforms. In terms of people who wield real power, MO has done nothing this cycle to contribute to Democratic gains in the state and federal corridors of power – if anything, we did the reverse. Contrast this with good stuff elsewhere, like flipping the seats of Jeff Flake, Dana Rohrabacher and Tom McArthur, among other Repukes, and several governorships. Everyone who contributed to those and other Democratic wins this midterm cycle did good, and deserves thanks.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week…