Missouri is a politically conservative state and is considered to be a Republican stronghold. This is demonstrated in the 2018 gubernatorial election, where Republican candidate Mike Parsons won with nearly 60% of the vote. Other major political figures from the state are Josh Hawley, U.S. Senator and former Attorney General of Missouri, and Blaine Luetkemeyer, the U.S. Representative for Missouri's 9th congressional district. In terms of local politics, counties across the state hold elections for county offices such as County Executive and County Councilmembers as well as other positions such as Sheriff or Coroner depending on their local laws. Local city council members are also elected by citizens in each municipality to make decisions about city budgets, ordinances and other matters relating to their city or town's residents.
The political climate in Missouri is somewhat conservative.
In Missouri 41.3% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 56.7% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.9% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Missouri remained very strongly Republican, 56.7% to 41.3%.
Missouri voted Republican in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Missouri is somewhat conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Missouri, Missouri: r r r r R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Missouri
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 276,114 contributions totaling $44,726,076 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $162 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 64,578 contributions totaling $45,177,765 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $700 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)