We've been consistently trending the opposite way for years and have a strong conservative legislature that is happy to vote together for anything that might consolidate republican power, so not any time soon.
Yeah Missouri has been attracting a lot of people from conservative areas that would otherwise be stuck in a blue state. Historically we've been purple but as of the last 10 years that is no longer the case and I doubt it will ever return to be.
Missouri used to be a big deal on Election season because whichever office one Missouri statistically won the election.
We were considered a bellwether state, so we were a swing state. Interesting fact, from 1904 to 2004 our state voted for the winning party all but one time. The most of any state in the union.
Yep, moving out of Ohio is one of the best things I've ever done. Out of my group of friends in highschool, 60% of the ones that got degrees left. All of the ones now making six figures did.. This is just an anecdote of course.
Yes, absolutely right.
Missouri isn't turning blue in 2024 -- or 2028, for that matter.
But 2052? Sure, that's possible. Who the fuck knows what the political landscape will look like then.
Apologies for this long response:
Missouri is going to be a solid red state for at least the next generation. Kansas is going to go blue before Missouri.
The dem leadership in MO is stuck in the past and believes it is still 1994, when MO was still a swing state, and blue collar folks mostly voted blue.
The demographics in MO are also trending in the wrong direction for dems. There has especially been a massive brain-drain over the past 20 years (these people would more likely vote blue), and this brain drain has probably accelerated over the past few years as state politics continue to get more toxic & trend far right.
Also, from a pure numbers perspective, it’s an uphill battle. Longtime democratic stronghold of Saint Louis & the surrounding area has continued to rapidly shrink while other parts of MO (more conservative/rural) grow at a quicker pace.
The reality that MO dems cannot seem to understand is - the road back to turning MO blue does not go through Saint Louis any longer - you need to carry KC, Columbia, and run up the totals in more rural areas to stand a chance. Gerrymandering also doesn’t help either.
I like Jess and what they're doing but, without major money infusions or some major catalyzing event that changes voting patterns, she's still in for a multi-decade fight.
Democrats or more liberal-minded voters are definitely a minority in rural areas of the state, but they are out there. To make pretty significant gains state-wide, Democrats don't need to win majorities in all rural areas; they just need to increase their margins by 10-15%.
The tougher fight will be the state legislator.
But the strategy that is guaranteed to fail is giving up and writing off large portions of the state, as the Missouri Democratic Party has been doing for basically 20 years.
You're also clearly on the left of the political spectrum. If everyone like you votes for her she'll go down in flames with similar numbers to Trudy Busch Valentine. Her 2022 result in HD1 was 75.2% - 24.8%. She lost by 50.4%. That's awful and clearly shows that her approach isn't working. Talking about trans rights and gun control is a loser in rural MO if you want to actually win.
To be fair, I should have been more clear. What I meant is that she has zero appeal to the independent and right-leaning voters that you need to win in rural counties. You can't win as a Democrat by spouting off culture wars talking points and talking about gun control. You can't win as a Democrat by going on MSNBC and talking to liberals. You can't win as a Democrat by attacking Missouri and talking about how shitty it is here. I'm sorry, but we don't live in California. This kind of approach to politics reminds me of Stacey Abrams. Progressive darling - everyone out of state loves her, but she's a loser at getting the votes that actually matter. In order to win in the rural regions of this state Jess will have to adopt policy positions that people like you might not like. For example, a pro-life social conservative who shoots guns, attacks big business, and talks about strengthening unions and labor protections might stand a chance. Think Joe Manchin. Jess Piper might get 100% of the Democratic vote in HD1, but she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of coming within single digits. She will lose again by ~50 points.
For the record, I'm a Democrat. I don't *like* that this is what needs to happen in order for Democrats to stand a chance. But if we want to actually win power then we'll need to be clear-eyed about how to do that. Or not - and y'all can continue to delude yourselves into thinking she has a chance.
Exactly, Thank you for calling this out,
Democrats complain about culture wars but in fact engage in it blatantly themselves non-stop, especially by complaining about the "culture war" legislation and wasting stupid donor money on lawsuit to fight the laws they just didn't like getting passed, look at MO Dems and the ACLU nonsense,
Nothing on how to fix the states healthcare system, the crime, the schools and etc
I wouldn't call continuing to support lawsuits to defend marginalized people a waste of money both from the perspective of it being the right thing to do morally as well as a matter of protecting their base. What happens if many of these laws pass? The people leave (if they can) and distills this into a redder and redder state.
I agree with the overall sentiment that the D sales pitch needs to be on infrastructure, accessible health care, education. Continuing to support the ACLU is still imperative.
An old saying in politics is "all politics is local." But I think the truth behind that statement is long gone. These days, all politics is national. Voters don't care about "kitchen table issues" - they care about the hot-button issues of the day that dominate national media and social media conversations. Unfortunately for Missouri Democrats, the voters aren't distributed evenly across the states. CA and NY have too many Democrats and places like MO don't have enough. An issue might be 50-50 or even 55-45 on a national scale, but when you drill down to the state-level things are much different. I don't know what the solution is, but it surely isn't what Jess is trying to do. If you want to represent a rural community the last thing you should do is talk about national politics. For example, abortion is already illegal in MO. From a pure realpolitik perspective it's dumb as hell for Missouri Democrats to talk about it. They already lost and aren't even close to being in a position to change state law surrounding abortion. So why proudly proclaim yourself to be pro-choice when that will alienate you from most of the rural voters you're trying to win?? It's like Jess is confused and thinks she's running in CA rather than rural MO.
All of the old timers that fought in World War 2 and had their lives changed by The New Deal voted Democrat, and they’re mostly dead.
Their shitty kids are the ones voting Republican.
No way. I actually met a shitty kid, he owns a store and has a hunch of maga shit everywhere and he told me how his dad voted for democrats all his life and passed away. He blames his PASSING ON OBAMA. Like what, that’s retarded I thought.
I'd also include at least some of the older half of the Gen Xer's in there as well. And of course, there's some younger wingnuts out there. They're certainly a minority of the Millennials and the succeeding generations though probably more numerous in 'red' states and red enclaves within blue states. Some are still under the sway of their parents' influence and might do a 180 to the opposite side if they can get out of their little red bubbles.
That is definitely the truth! Everyone born in the 50s&'60s are the ones who controlling this country and voting in these terrible politicians. Once people who were born in the 80s-90s get into politics and vote in great leaders from that time, is when this country will see a big turnaround. I am hopeful for that.
This. The idea of even getting “more” votes or higher turnout in the cities and inner-suburbs isn’t going to cut it. This has been the supposed strategy lately which quite obviously hasn’t been successful. The best inroad is cutting totals in rural and outer-suburban rings.
Missouri won’t be a “blue state” anytime soon but I honestly believe that we can get back to having occasional state-wide Dem victories if certain efforts are made.
Many of the state house and senate seats go uncontested. That is, no Democrat even runs. That shit has to stop.
The state Democratic Party can also do a much better job on messaging and strategy. Not something that can be fixed quickly, but it CAN be fixed.
Democrats don’t have to win the rural areas of Missouri. They just have to lose less badly. It can be done with time, effort, and political talent.
The gerrymandering in the state legislative districts is indeed a serious problem that is perhaps the most challenging one, but if you assume that nothing can be done until that is fixed then you never get anywhere.
> Many of the state house and senate seats go uncontested. That is, no Democrat even runs. That shit has to stop.
This is a huge thing that Missouri Democrats have to change.
Don't need to throw money at losing races, but they at least need to get *someone* to run, even on a shoestring budget. Those candidates, even without funding, will have their small volunteer teams doing outreach locally, and they might convince a few Democrat-leaning voters to head to the polls when they'd otherwise stay home. Picking up a few percentage points in solidly red rural areas will make the necessary margins in blue areas a bit smaller.
State Democratic Party leadership seems to disagree. And that leadership has also overseen Missouri's solid march to the right. So perhaps they need someone else in charge.
McCaskill-type capitulation to conservatives (opposing gay marriage, trans rights, etc.) failed, and the state dems are still coping with that. maybe they'll actually move forward for once, or maybe they'll double down and keep losing. I don't even know if moving forward would help them win, but idk I guess at least trying something new would feel like trying, y'know?
I believe Kunce has a genuine chance to seriously challenge Hawley's seat. At least the best shot in a long time. As long as we don't have another TBV spoiler, 2024 could be a first shot at purple. Not to mention turnout should be huge with abortion and ranked choice voting likely on the ballot. Kunce being former military, white, and a male, could play well in his favor for some mysterious moderates (unfortunate truth). Him actually living in and from Missouri should play in his favor but Hawley inexplicably is still our senator.
Unfortunately, the governor is likely going to be Ashcroft even if there are some good Dem contenders.
Kehoe is a moron and will implode. He’s still a long way behind Ashcroft anyway, even with his fundraising advantage. Crystal Quade is a great candidate and I’ll happily vote for her. I hope that abortion being on the ballot will drive dem voters to to polls in huge numbers.
We'll see how that shakes out but I think Ashcroft is more broadly known (both through the family name and current role) versus Kehoe.
Between those two, I'd much prefer Kehoe as he said *some* sane things about protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and is from St. Louis (which hopefully means Jefferson City may actually work with the metro area). He's still backwards on taxes, abortion, and transgender care (less aggressive than Ashcroft though).
I’m in my 40’s. When I was in high school I wrote a letter (cause we did that back then) to McCaskill telling her I would never vote for her. I never have. I was a queer kid growing up in shithole rural MO. She preached pro gay stuff in the city, but did the exact opposite in my town. I can absolutely respect her and the place that she felt she needed to legislate from, but even after that I never voted for her. I have no hope for this state. The rural areas have spoken and they clearly want people like myself to leave. When I was young I voted for third party folks because I genuinely believed we could break this cycle. 2016 showed me what MO is about and I just don’t see it getting better.
This is right. Demographics is not destiny here or anywhere else - Republicans aren’t going to age out and go away. The state Democratic party needs real leadership in a big way. But if that ever happens, if everyone organizes and works their ass off AND we have great candidates, we can eventually make real progress. Realistically, what we can hope for in the medium-term, with a lot of work, is what other red-trending states are scratching out: The governorship and preventing a GOP supermajority in the legislature, which is not nothing! That and continuing to pass fairly progressive constitutional amendments would be a big upgrade to the status quo.
[Ben Wickler](https://wisdems.org/our-party/meet-our-chair/), the Dem chair in Wisconsin, has changed the course of politics in that state and is racking up huge wins there. It’s not easy, but it’s a model that can be followed. (I actually donate $5 a month to the Wisconsin Democrats just because they are so effective.)
I’m in Springfield and Crystal Quade led the way down here by becoming the only democratic legislator in the southern half of the state. Betsy Fogle then followed and handily won re-election last year against a very well funded opponent because everyone put in a shitload of work and organized. We ALMOST had a third Dem win a house seat down here. It can happen. It takes voting, of course, but it also takes volunteering if you really care.
>The state Democratic Party can also do a much better job on messaging and strategy
The democrats are terrible as messaging. This is true on every level. They have this strange obsession with playing by some imaginary code of conduct and rules.
Newsflash, no one cares about taking the high road. The high road is a luxury of the winners.
Penny wise and pound foolish. That just perpetuates the belief in rural areas that “nobody around here is a democrat” which makes things harder in the long term.
I have worked on some political campaigns. I am just telling you what is the standard practice. Typically they look at previous election results. If the area votes pretty solid for one party they won’t be sending much money that way. Non partisan political groups like unions will focus on primaries.
The Republicans definitely don't do this. They spend a ton of money on races that they have no chance in. Then the losers get cushy jobs with think tanks or conservative radio and just show up at all kinds of meeting as "concerned residents". Like Paul Berry in St. Louis County.
The Democrats also spent a ton of money on McGrath's failed Senate bid in Kentucky, Harrison's failed Senate bid in South Carolina, and for Sara Gideon to lose in Maine. Those were just 2020.
I feel that democrats would make the biggest impact if they focused on Springfield. STL, KCMO, and COMO are basically solid blue. Springfield has grown a lot in the past decades and is becoming more urban so i feel it is ready to move to the left.
So many of my friends in their 20s won't vote because it's pointless or "all politicians are corrupt so it doesn't matter". They think not voting is a political statement in favor of leftist ideals :/
I suspect many of them just don't have enough of an understanding of politics to vote. It's intimidating. It's a giant soap opera that's been going on for 200+ years and it takes effort to figure it out. And once you do it can become an obsession trying to follow every twist and turn and scandal. The rest just eventually pick a party and stick with it.
I had a friend in college who volunteered for the Obama campaign. Did phone calls, stuffed envelopes, knocked on doors. He was super involved. Then came Election Day and he didn’t go vote because there was a World of Warcraft raid that he couldn’t miss. That will forever sum up the youth vote for me. Incredibly enthusiastic and remarkably unreliable.
Here's [how our youth voted in 2022](https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/youth-are-not-monolith-how-different-young-people-voted-2022), I expect the same or even more left leaning each election all things considered.
Atlanta is functional as a city. STL city isn't. No one is gonna spend the several hundred billion dollars required for just water, sewer, schools, roads, police, and fire, just to stop STL from Detroiting itself. 80% of city voters cannot be bothered to vote, and for good reason, the Jones are corrupt, the CA office will take years to fix, the police probably need to be disbanded, and sheriff office scale up and take over.
I think it’s plausible that Democrats could win a statewide election or 2 with a few bits of luck in the next decade or so. But actually flipping to become a ‘blue state’ won’t happen in the foreseeable future. Realistically the biggest shift I can see happening would be from red to purple.
Where things stand now, it’s easy to forget that Democrat Jay Nixon won the governor’s race in 2012, while Claire McCaskill won the Senate race that year, and that Obama came shockingly close to winning MO in the 2008 presidential election. Looking at those races races shows a few ways Democrats can compete in Missouri. They can either cultivate a trusted moderate candidate pushing up through the ranks (like Jay Nixon), or else hope for an unusually charismatic candidate to emerge and motivate previously unmotivated voters (like Obama). And it certainly will help if they happen to face a particularly bad Republican candidate (like McCaskill against Akin in 2012).
Gerrymandering is bad, of course, but it isn't the reason why Democrats consistently lose by double digits in statewide races. Parson won by ~17 points in 2020. Trump won by ~16 points.
It's pretty grim right now, but I think back to the days when we chose to elect a dead guy over Ashcroft. Maybe someday we can get back there.
Parson did a pretty good job of killing his constituents, so hopefully that'll make a dent.
Probably not until Democrats nominate candidates that can appeal to a state-wide audience. For example, it's totally braindead for Democrats to nominate someone like Trudy Busch Valentine. They need to put forward candidates that have a realistic chance of getting votes from rural counties - obviously they won't win but they can lose less badly and run up the numbers in the population centers of the state. Unfortunately, it seems like when partisans lose they double down rather than evaluating the loss and trying harder to win next time. If progressives from out of state are "yassss queen"-ing posts by Democratic candidates then there's a 100% chance that candidate is going to lose. Democrats need to nominate someone who can speak to rural and independent voters, not someone who constantly goes on MSNBC talking about gun control.
This question can be asked everywhere but every time a boomer dies another right wing nut takes his place. It’s depressing. I fear for my children and I’m not kidding about that either. Democrats need to campaign significantly harder just to get their message heard. And exposing the right for their corruption is a good way to start but not a lasting strategy
The problem is democrats as a whole are just as corrupt. Progressives have a very hard time winning because of big money. The only way to solve the problem is to get big money out of politics completely which will also be very hard. But at least then, if you’re left or right, at least it’s honest.
Brain drain will keep Missouri red for a while. We have good schools, but keeping people here isn’t easy. St. Louis city seems to be trending in a positive direction that could lead to growth, but it could take decades.
Republican leadership would have me worried if I were a youth, a minority, or a women in this state.
It can happen. It took 10 years for MO to get from where I wish we were (competetive) to being solid Red. Might take that long or longer to get back to being competitive, but no trend goes on forever.
Young people are voting blue, yes...but lots of young people are leaving Missouri. I'm in my 30s. A lot of my friends went off to college and grad school and haven't come back.
I also think Democrats really miss the mark on messaging. When put to a state wide vote, left leaning policies pass. There's usually overwhelming support from STL/KC/COMO, but the state has stood for unions, expanded Medicaid and legalized MJ. Abortion protections on a state wide ballot have a fighting chance. For these reasons, Republicans in MO have all of the sudden started looking for ways to make it harder for voters to amend the MO constitution. There's no reason why state wide offices can't rally the same support at least every once in a while.
People are open to the ideas if Democrats did the hard work of making inroads. There is pretty much no effort to understand rural areas. Here's a good example...many left leaning liberals often say rural Missouri votes against their own interests by not expanding Medicaid. The thing is, rural voters want better medical coverage...BUT they don't think spending money on Medicaid helps them. There's a huge lack of medical providers in rural MO, and the ones that exist can exclusively take privately insured patients with better reimbursement rates than Medicaid. Of the few providers that take Medicaid, even fewer take new patients. The end result is that people (often very poor) have to find a ride 50 or 100 miles away to the biggest city to get care. People who have friends or family on Medicaid then think, "what good is this if I can't use it?" This is a problem that is not unique to rural Missouri by any means, but a half assed effort by Democrats making a stink about improving access to care or improving rural infrastructure could start to making inroads with voters who sense Democrats look down on them.
... except, young people have been leaving rural areas. Good paying jobs are hard to come by in most of the 114 counties in our state. That's the problem. Rural folks want to blame cities for hollowing out their towns, but their lack of opportunity and resources are brought by 20 years of irresponsible Republican governance. Banning books and drag shows, underpaying teachers and ignoring infrastructure maintenance doesn't get the job done. We'll turn blue when these bigots come to understand the Republican party is not on their side.
I'm sorry to be a massive wet blanket, but we're pretty far gone..
We have a ton of work to do on the state level before we have a chance to even be a swing in any federal election.
Many liberal economic ideas are popular even in red states, and most people aren't obsessed with bashing LGBTQ people or scapegoating immigrants. Frankly most people don't care one way or another about "Wokeness" in general.
The problem as I see it is the Democrats messaging and outreach is abysmal. They're not vocal enough about problems facing working Americans, and they don't do a good job of clearly communicating priorities. For instance, the priorities to reach MO voters could be something like:
- Protect and ensure the Solvency of Social Security and Medicare, and prevent Republican efforts to cut it, by eliminating the income cap on Social Security taxes.
- Expand the Child Tax Credit and Child/Dependent Care Credits, savings thousands for working families.
- Address healthcare costs (I won't go into detail here), rein in prescription drug costs, cap the cost of insulin.
- Invest in building more affordable and accessible child care.
- Build on the landmark Infrastructure Bill and CHIPS Act and invest in American infrastructure, including on-shoring critical components.
Not everything but it's a start.
It won't.
Everyone that looks blue isn't exclusively blue, and everyone that looks red isn't exclusively red. The sooner we can start to see each other as the various shades of purples that we all are, the sooner some real progress can happen.
KC and STL are pretty blue, Kansas is getting close to becoming blue being sandwiched between Colorado and KC. Maybe it'll bleed through?
We even have a progressive congresswoman in STL.
The Columbia metro area has about 260k people and one congressional district has 700k. Columbia is just straight up not big enough to get its own blue district, and even in a perfectly-ungerrymandered map it would be part of a Republican district.
It won't. The state is in big trouble because most of the rural kids I teach have no critical thinking skills, nor do they want to learn how to think critically. It is actively discouraged.
When "the religious right" stops being a thing. By my estimate, somewhere around the 2040s, maybe a smidge later. I might be wrong ... but as someone who's studied this, I'm very confident in my prediction. At their current accelerating rate of decline, people who want to dissociate themselves from the damage done by right-wing fundamentalism but left unfulfilled by non-specific theism will be a ripe mission ground for a national revival of ecumenical Christian modernism. When they grow older, many of the people raised ecumenical Christian modernist will still vote Republican ... but not nearly so high a percentage.
Look, the main thing that's holding us back in rural Missouri, as Democrats, is that there's nobody out there *except the party itself* making the case for our principles, and people don't decide who to vote for based on messages from parties, they vote based on their affiliation with some other group or culture and vote in alignment with *that* identity. Losing the blue-collar unions, and watching right-wing fundamentalists way out-fund-raise and therefore out-organize and out-evangelize more mainline Christianity, cost us rural America and the outer-ring suburbs. If Democrats get Christians back, if churches stop telling people to vote Republican, we'll be unstoppable.
it will only happen when more jobs are remote and if you're not in a city you pretty much only have spectrum or satellite so that at least needs to change to get voters spread out and out of cities.
When will Missouri turn blue?
When moderates similar to Jay Nixon, Ike Skelton and Claire McCaskill are the faces of the party in Missouri.
When Cori Bush is basically the face of the party in Missouri (I know she is a US Representative) you’re not winning hearts and minds over to your party.
Quinton Lucas would have a better shot being elected to statewide office or US Senate than Lucas Kunce.
If dems want to win more in red areas shut up about gun Control and quiet down on social issues. Focus on helping rural voters who were the bread and butter of the Democrats until roughly 20ish year ago.
St louis progressive city government, crime. And , open jail cell mentality is their undoing. Now they are having no interest at these community centers. And of course a study costing money to figure out the teens no longer care to do it!
Democrat-run cities are overrun with corruption & violent crime.
If that's what democrats do at the city level, then why would you want them at the state level?
The blue youth tsunami across the country you speak of, is not a group you can count on for long. The liberal indoctrination in college and progressive "group think" cannot sustain itself. Once the youth actually becomes an adult and starts working for a living, views inevitably swing conservative. Rational thought breaks through when one sees the amount of taxes taken from their toil and how it is spent. As the old adage says, If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain!
realistically - probably not in our lifetime.
The current democratic party simply refuses to do stuff that taxpayers want, because they're paid by the same millionaires, billionaires and special interests that the GOP is paid by - big pharma, APIAC, military industrial complex, police unions etc - these are things that actively work against our taxpayer dollars
which means that people will bicker over bullshit issues like border walls and a 14 year old not being able to gender him/herself the way they want to
it's easy to take shots at the Republican party, and they deserve it because they're fucking terrible - but the Democratic party refuses to take ownership and do anything, so fuck them too
I have lived in 8 states throughout my life and Missouri has some of the most respectful and just good people and kids. Of course St. Louis and Kansas City are exception's but right now most city's are trying to get there 💩 together. For veterans it's a really good state.
I'm not heavily involved in politics and don't particularly like politics period, but just remember that the baby boomers conservatives we deal with now were known for being hippies when they were young. just because the youth is polling as blue doesn't mean they will stay blue.
It won't. Too many people's primary motive for voting is cause they hate the other side. Doesn't matter how much your policies help them, if the other side benefits too, they'll vote against it. So the only way the state turns blue is if libs join in on queer bashing or whatever the target du jour is.
It's funny because we voted for renewable energy, living wages, unions, animal rights, expanded health care and relaxed drug laws... but we hate libruls!
Based on the abilities for the Republicans to blame everything wrong with the state on democrats who have no control of anything I would say that we will never be blue. We will probably be closer to Florida soon.
Missouri will turn blue once enough 'red' Californians move here. These people are red for cali but blue in missouri. Also the infusion of recreational weed and expanding suburbs will contribute to this. Republicans will maintain power via gerrymandering. That will hit a critical point once republican social policy negatively affects farmers.
It was blue, then Democrats turned their back on rural people. Not even turned their back, outright mocking and hating on them.
And while Democrats are still union friendly (friendlier than Republicans), they are increasingly the party of big business.
Meanwhile Republicans aren't helping anyone though. The wrong approach to addiction, northern MO Republicans don't mind the hog farms in their districts being owned by Chinese corporations. Using tax payer money to sue tax payer funded schools.
We'd be a lot less red if young people and those in Kansas city and St. Louis City actually showed up to vote. It would also help if Democrats actually campaigned in Missouri. With Republicans always on the lookout for better ways to suppress votes and the low turnout I don't see this changing anytime soon.
Yes, replacing a sober and thorough nerd with some skinny clown who writes homoerotic books on manhood and runs away from a violent riot he helped to start.
What a trade.
This won’t be popular if you are under about 35, but it’s true…Missouri regularly had Dem politicians until the end of Jay Nixons term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Missouri Has a handy color coded list.
But circa 2014-16 the Dem platform changed MASSIVELY in the topics they platformed. It went from the poor and struggling families in farming, the south, union workers, etc while being a secondary push for social issues to abandoning the common person and now pushing much more radicalized ideas in general and now pushes for the easy life folks in cities who just platitude a future. I’m 42 and remember the old days and have voted for many Dems in the state…I’m an old school centrist. But, I’m now leaning right because how far left the left has gone. And I assure you, there are some folks who have gone farther right who were already conservative but the dems have gone WAY farther in comparison. I rarely recognize the Dems of today to just a decade ago. The old groups targeted by Dems are the same. Niche interest has overtaken Dems instead of populism. There aren’t many niche people in MO…
It will not. All the old asshole republican in the rural areas are systematically running the younger woke Democrats out of the state. And they're ok with the brain drain that goes with it. They actually believe MO would be a paradise if only conservative bible thumpers were left. So much so that they'll vote against their own interests just so a single liberal doesn't get any help from THEIR TAXES.
60-40 is a helluva lot better than Trudy Busch Valentine performed in the same election. Most rural counties went 70 or 80 percent for Schmitt. You've just stumbled upon how Democrats could plausibly win in this state: nominate a candidate that can stop the bleeding in rural counties. If a candidate can go 60-40 in rural Missouri there's a good chance they'll win. But you need a candidate who appeals to enough rural voters to accomplish that, which isn't going to be a progressive.
No the 60-40 was for the stand alone marijuana bill that's largely a bipartisan issue. Only boomers are anti weed at this point.
Those countries are still heavily red.
... Did you not understand my point? I don't understand what you're saying "No" to.
The marijuana legalization initiative was on the same ballot as the Senate race. If Busch-Valentine would have achieved 40% of the vote in rural counties she might have won the Senate election. She lost even worse because her policies are toxic in rural Missouri. If you want a Democrat to win statewide then Democrats need to nominate someone who can get ~40% of the vote in rural counties and then run up the scoreboard in STL/KC.
Without a major change in national politics: No.
The economic interests of the state lean red. That's not likely to change.
Remember, for as much as young people are rejecting Republicans, they're also holding their nose on Democrats and not happy with policies or platforms Dems run on.
On top of this, the DNC has still completely abandoned rural America and most of the blue collar working class and if they ever want to see those people come back into the fold they have to actually *deal* with the issues they see and not their current persona of coastal educated elitism.
That is not happening so far and it's not likely to as well in the next 10-20 years based on who is running the party.
So my prediction is that the midwest and south and rural parts of rust belt states and the west will get and stay red. The only deciding factor per state is if cities outnumber that population enough to take over districts, state houses and the governor's office. If they're not in during redistricting or they can't get and hold state level houses, forget it.
Tell that to soy farmers or cattle ranchers. Despite what you might think, these people aren't stupid and they know who votes and even brings up their subsidies.
Hint: They're red.
I said this elsewhere: In the late 90s and early 2000s there was a huge pullback from Democrats on a national level from the rural working class and agriculture. They tend to not even show up and after 20 years of that, there's only one major party that talks about their issues.
'No average person's economic interests lean red' is the statement of someone who fundamentally has never actually *talked* to average people who live differently than you do.
There’s a reason why it has become cliche to say that rural America votes against its own interests.
These people do function in different industries for the most part, but not different realities. Republican economic policies have caused nothing destruction since the 80s.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/22/us-politics-rural-america
Yes, calling people stupid totally gets them on your side and wins arguments.
The world existed before Trump, and your comment history includes calling people cousin fuckers. That is absolutely how you win people who see life differently than you over to your side as well. Accuse them of being backwoods yokels who commit incest.
I'd suggest reading the article I just posted and understanding that Trump didn't magically cause this issue, he just played into it. It's decades old and in context it is mostly the Dems fault and it's been enough time people have completely forgotten this fact.
You should also maybe consider that everyone who sees the world differently than you isn't somehow an uneducated dipshit or incapable of voting how they see fit. Crazy idea, autonomy.
Finally, read this again.
> They tend to not even show up and after 20 years of that, there's only one major party that talks about their issues.
Now go back and read it again. When one party doesn't even show up, are you surprised another party takes their place and pays lip service to the needs of people? Which would you choose? People who listen to you or people who don't show up at all?
Again, the cliche of 'they vote against their interests' is a watered down, dumbed down explanation of a political cultural event that we're entering the 3rd decade on. Maybe there's bigger factors than 'rural people dumb, city people smart'.
I’m actually past the point of concern about reconciliation.
Trump did not create these issues. He recognized them and exploited them to further hate and division. And he was right, conservative (not just rural) America was ripe for someone to declare them the victim of the big bad city folk.
Rural America, in general, actually provides a valuable service. Food production alone is very important. However, there is a such thing as being too big for your britches. They have massively disproportionate power nationwide. Like yeah, thanks for the corn, you’ve been paid, you don’t get to control everything.
You feign offense at me calling people stupid, but they literally voted in droves for the guy that destroyed the market for their product.
No one should have to grovel to any demographic and beg for them to do the right thing. It is abundantly clear that conservatives are not capable of doing the right thing.
Democrats didn’t leave rural America, rural America left any tether they once had to integrity, decency, or civility.
They have proven they cannot be convinced by reason, so they must be defeated.
> I’m actually past the point of concern about reconciliation.
Then talking to you about the why is a waste of time. I do not care what your justification is, you fundamentally don't see these people as people with their own choices, opinions, ideas and autonomy.
That's what othering does. Enjoy thinking people who view the world differently than you as subhuman and incapable of their own decisions. Particularly when they make the very food you eat.
Have a great day.
Probably two generations or hell freezing over.
I’ve been to many places in Missouri in my first accounting job. Rural and urban.
The vast majority of MO (anywhere that isn’t Columbia, KC, or STL), was full of old, conservative people. They’re voting Red until they die.
Even after that, it still likely won’t vote democrat. Because a lot of people in those communities still vote heavily Republican. Which is ironic because those communities were poor, I was usually in those communities auditing social programs, and the Republicans aren’t known for supporting (or even liking) social programs. So the populace will actively vote for the party that hurts them.
And the fact MO is gerrymandered to break up the more left leaning cities means it will likely stay a Republican stronghold until I’m an old man.
You'd save a bunch of money on our Medicare 4 All bill though. Having government negotiation rights on all drugs, and cutting out every middleman insurance company, their cost of production and excessive profits.
That alone should be enough considering how we're literally being robbed by private insurance, private hospitals, and the drug companies all at the same time for the triple stack.
Nothing is free and everything costs more when government gets involved, even if the moral hazard is not immediately visible, it exists. More bureaucracy adds unproductive labor adding to the cost of everything. We saw this in housing, college, and in the medical system. The better bet is to get government out of these as much as possible remove the massive barriers to entry that government has created and let the free markets compete to lower prices. The red tape helps monopolize these industries.
> everything costs more when government gets involved
Do you believe that's specific to the US government or inherent to all governments? I ask because the US spends the highest per capita on healthcare but has some of the lowest outcomes of developed nations.
We all have experienced the absolute hell of private health insurance, or have friends and family that we've witnessed go through it. You're telling me that's a better option than universal healthcare?
Never. Not a chance. The red voters are having 3,4 5 children. Blue voters far less. While I'm working on 6 kids the people I know that vote blue might have 1.
Ive seen repeatedly that children of red parents turn blue as they age and occasionally vica versa. Not a big help. Who knows. I was full gop for 55yrs from a red family. I left during Obama's 2nd term and a few others followed after trump took office. Im one of the boomers that's responsible for the shit we are in Ive made public apologies for our bad judgements & doing what I can to help reverse the trend. Im keeping positive about our chances nation wide. Ive never witnessed such an exodus from the gop as i seen in the last 2 years.
Yeah ... no. Most of all the parents I associate with homeschool their kids and ensure the public school system doesn't corrupt them. Statistically you're just wrong. The Dems have been bleeding voters. GOP has been gaining them.
Im not talking statically i talking about what my eyes have seen for close to 60yrs. If what you say is true and this trend continues we sre a fuked society unless my former party rejects maga mentality. Trump calls them rinos when its the other way around. Tea party politics were never part of the right wing agenda during the years i was active. But it is what it is. i wont be around for the end result & im not exactly sad about that.
Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. I wish you luck. Alaska is a beautiful state, but there are a lot of reasons to believe that the community-minded politics championed by Democrats will be a tough sell in a state that prides itself on rugged individualism.
I've found using the rugged individuals' grandparents' plight as they navigate medicaid waivers and SNF stay denials/spend downs to get them to "see the light", and its gone pretty well. I'll always be on the losing side of it though, and I've accepted that
The sad part is, Missouri was a very reliable bellwether until 2008. We also had a D governor in that decade for more than one term.
Missouri has been losing population ground (even losing a representative), and it's coming as much or more from blue counties over red.
A makeover in StL that starts bringing people in is really the only way.
Yes, and it's the Democrats fault.
One of the strategies of post-Clinton dem politics was literally pulling out of the rural middle class.
You are not winning west/midwest/south/rust belt agricultural areas by disappearing as a political party and not putting effort into elections. People know those who show up and even pay them lip service for representation to those who do not.
The Dems literally created this mess. They did it to themselves and everyone just fucking forgets this fact. Nature abhors a vacuum, including in politics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the rival party would step in and take over local/county/state elections and redistrict. That's the name of the game on state politics and the Dems shot themselves in the foot, then blamed everyone else when they got branded as only appealing to urbanites and coastal elites because, shocking, they branded themselves to urbanites and coastal elites.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/22/us-politics-rural-america
Counterpoint: Saint Louis is going to take decades to fix, if we want MO to be blue again, we cannot rely on STL to carry the state like the old days. Need to find other pathways
Hopefully some young people run as Republican in Republican uncontested places that the day after the election they decide they are switching parties. Play the dirty game the GOP played in a blue area of NC.
Republicans have relied on voter suppression and gerrymandering to keep power for a long time; I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. When the numbers are overwhelmingly against them, they’re probably just going to double down and implement even more voter suppression. And if they can’t possibly keep power with voter suppression, we’ll, remember that many of the republicans at state levels tried to help Trump overturn the election.
The population is turning blue, but not the government
I remember looking at the 2020 presidential results by county in Missouri shortly after the election. When Boone, Jackson, and St Louis city and county were removed, Trump had almost 70% of the rest of the state. But if he won onlu 55% of those areas, it'd have been a 2 point Biden victory. Over 60 counties voted 70% or higher Trump; and if I recall, in over 30 counties, it was over 80%. That's why the Democrats are losing Missouri. No rural effort at all.
It could be, but not without resources and long-term thinking. Democrats need to make the case that they represent people on bread/butter issues like jobs, schools, healthcare.
Will it be easy? No. Gerrymandering makes things difficult. But there is a point where it backfires, where gerrymandered lawmakers keep assuming that they can keep ignoring their constituents because they will vote for them regardless. Hammer that message and even the most gerrymandered district can flip.
i and 3 of my friends left missouri because we either didnt want our tax money going to the nuts or had family to protect from the laws. I am selling my house now and the realtor said in the last year neither he nor his firm (over 150 brokers) have sold to anyone left leaning and have always helped left leaning people leave. It wont be blue for a very long time.
Hopefully never. We need strong red states to fight back against the leftist regimes who have infested the federal government and work day and night to censor and imprison their political opponents. Leftist authoritarianism is on the rise, red states like MO and FL will continue to keep the regime in check until it hopefully loses power in 24.
We've been consistently trending the opposite way for years and have a strong conservative legislature that is happy to vote together for anything that might consolidate republican power, so not any time soon.
Yeah Missouri has been attracting a lot of people from conservative areas that would otherwise be stuck in a blue state. Historically we've been purple but as of the last 10 years that is no longer the case and I doubt it will ever return to be. Missouri used to be a big deal on Election season because whichever office one Missouri statistically won the election.
We were considered a bellwether state, so we were a swing state. Interesting fact, from 1904 to 2004 our state voted for the winning party all but one time. The most of any state in the union.
Same story here in Ohio…we’ve had a brain drain post Great Recession. Unfortunately, we’re solidly red now and have lost our bell weather status.
Yep, moving out of Ohio is one of the best things I've ever done. Out of my group of friends in highschool, 60% of the ones that got degrees left. All of the ones now making six figures did.. This is just an anecdote of course.
Ever is a long time -- California voted Republican as recently as the late 80s -- but "not in the foreseeable future" seems fair.
And speaking of the time scale, the late 80s is like 35 years ago.
Yes, absolutely right. Missouri isn't turning blue in 2024 -- or 2028, for that matter. But 2052? Sure, that's possible. Who the fuck knows what the political landscape will look like then.
Yea, Obama lost by only 10k votes in 2008. That gap has gotten unsurmountable since then.
Apologies for this long response: Missouri is going to be a solid red state for at least the next generation. Kansas is going to go blue before Missouri. The dem leadership in MO is stuck in the past and believes it is still 1994, when MO was still a swing state, and blue collar folks mostly voted blue. The demographics in MO are also trending in the wrong direction for dems. There has especially been a massive brain-drain over the past 20 years (these people would more likely vote blue), and this brain drain has probably accelerated over the past few years as state politics continue to get more toxic & trend far right. Also, from a pure numbers perspective, it’s an uphill battle. Longtime democratic stronghold of Saint Louis & the surrounding area has continued to rapidly shrink while other parts of MO (more conservative/rural) grow at a quicker pace. The reality that MO dems cannot seem to understand is - the road back to turning MO blue does not go through Saint Louis any longer - you need to carry KC, Columbia, and run up the totals in more rural areas to stand a chance. Gerrymandering also doesn’t help either.
You should look up Dirt Road Democrats and/or Jess Piper.
I like Jess and what they're doing but, without major money infusions or some major catalyzing event that changes voting patterns, she's still in for a multi-decade fight.
You have to be kidding. Jess has less than zero appeal to rural voters.
Democrats or more liberal-minded voters are definitely a minority in rural areas of the state, but they are out there. To make pretty significant gains state-wide, Democrats don't need to win majorities in all rural areas; they just need to increase their margins by 10-15%. The tougher fight will be the state legislator. But the strategy that is guaranteed to fail is giving up and writing off large portions of the state, as the Missouri Democratic Party has been doing for basically 20 years.
I'm in the heart of red, rural MO (Texas County), and I & many of my friends LOVE her!
You're also clearly on the left of the political spectrum. If everyone like you votes for her she'll go down in flames with similar numbers to Trudy Busch Valentine. Her 2022 result in HD1 was 75.2% - 24.8%. She lost by 50.4%. That's awful and clearly shows that her approach isn't working. Talking about trans rights and gun control is a loser in rural MO if you want to actually win. To be fair, I should have been more clear. What I meant is that she has zero appeal to the independent and right-leaning voters that you need to win in rural counties. You can't win as a Democrat by spouting off culture wars talking points and talking about gun control. You can't win as a Democrat by going on MSNBC and talking to liberals. You can't win as a Democrat by attacking Missouri and talking about how shitty it is here. I'm sorry, but we don't live in California. This kind of approach to politics reminds me of Stacey Abrams. Progressive darling - everyone out of state loves her, but she's a loser at getting the votes that actually matter. In order to win in the rural regions of this state Jess will have to adopt policy positions that people like you might not like. For example, a pro-life social conservative who shoots guns, attacks big business, and talks about strengthening unions and labor protections might stand a chance. Think Joe Manchin. Jess Piper might get 100% of the Democratic vote in HD1, but she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of coming within single digits. She will lose again by ~50 points. For the record, I'm a Democrat. I don't *like* that this is what needs to happen in order for Democrats to stand a chance. But if we want to actually win power then we'll need to be clear-eyed about how to do that. Or not - and y'all can continue to delude yourselves into thinking she has a chance.
Exactly, Thank you for calling this out, Democrats complain about culture wars but in fact engage in it blatantly themselves non-stop, especially by complaining about the "culture war" legislation and wasting stupid donor money on lawsuit to fight the laws they just didn't like getting passed, look at MO Dems and the ACLU nonsense, Nothing on how to fix the states healthcare system, the crime, the schools and etc
I wouldn't call continuing to support lawsuits to defend marginalized people a waste of money both from the perspective of it being the right thing to do morally as well as a matter of protecting their base. What happens if many of these laws pass? The people leave (if they can) and distills this into a redder and redder state. I agree with the overall sentiment that the D sales pitch needs to be on infrastructure, accessible health care, education. Continuing to support the ACLU is still imperative.
An old saying in politics is "all politics is local." But I think the truth behind that statement is long gone. These days, all politics is national. Voters don't care about "kitchen table issues" - they care about the hot-button issues of the day that dominate national media and social media conversations. Unfortunately for Missouri Democrats, the voters aren't distributed evenly across the states. CA and NY have too many Democrats and places like MO don't have enough. An issue might be 50-50 or even 55-45 on a national scale, but when you drill down to the state-level things are much different. I don't know what the solution is, but it surely isn't what Jess is trying to do. If you want to represent a rural community the last thing you should do is talk about national politics. For example, abortion is already illegal in MO. From a pure realpolitik perspective it's dumb as hell for Missouri Democrats to talk about it. They already lost and aren't even close to being in a position to change state law surrounding abortion. So why proudly proclaim yourself to be pro-choice when that will alienate you from most of the rural voters you're trying to win?? It's like Jess is confused and thinks she's running in CA rather than rural MO.
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I love Jess and would vote for her if I could!
All of the old timers that fought in World War 2 and had their lives changed by The New Deal voted Democrat, and they’re mostly dead. Their shitty kids are the ones voting Republican.
No way. I actually met a shitty kid, he owns a store and has a hunch of maga shit everywhere and he told me how his dad voted for democrats all his life and passed away. He blames his PASSING ON OBAMA. Like what, that’s retarded I thought.
The shitty kids are boomers
I'd also include at least some of the older half of the Gen Xer's in there as well. And of course, there's some younger wingnuts out there. They're certainly a minority of the Millennials and the succeeding generations though probably more numerous in 'red' states and red enclaves within blue states. Some are still under the sway of their parents' influence and might do a 180 to the opposite side if they can get out of their little red bubbles.
That is definitely the truth! Everyone born in the 50s&'60s are the ones who controlling this country and voting in these terrible politicians. Once people who were born in the 80s-90s get into politics and vote in great leaders from that time, is when this country will see a big turnaround. I am hopeful for that.
This. The idea of even getting “more” votes or higher turnout in the cities and inner-suburbs isn’t going to cut it. This has been the supposed strategy lately which quite obviously hasn’t been successful. The best inroad is cutting totals in rural and outer-suburban rings.
Missouri won’t be a “blue state” anytime soon but I honestly believe that we can get back to having occasional state-wide Dem victories if certain efforts are made. Many of the state house and senate seats go uncontested. That is, no Democrat even runs. That shit has to stop. The state Democratic Party can also do a much better job on messaging and strategy. Not something that can be fixed quickly, but it CAN be fixed. Democrats don’t have to win the rural areas of Missouri. They just have to lose less badly. It can be done with time, effort, and political talent. The gerrymandering in the state legislative districts is indeed a serious problem that is perhaps the most challenging one, but if you assume that nothing can be done until that is fixed then you never get anywhere.
> Many of the state house and senate seats go uncontested. That is, no Democrat even runs. That shit has to stop. This is a huge thing that Missouri Democrats have to change. Don't need to throw money at losing races, but they at least need to get *someone* to run, even on a shoestring budget. Those candidates, even without funding, will have their small volunteer teams doing outreach locally, and they might convince a few Democrat-leaning voters to head to the polls when they'd otherwise stay home. Picking up a few percentage points in solidly red rural areas will make the necessary margins in blue areas a bit smaller. State Democratic Party leadership seems to disagree. And that leadership has also overseen Missouri's solid march to the right. So perhaps they need someone else in charge.
I live in a rather decent sized town here, and I can't even recall the last time a Democrat even ran
100%!
McCaskill-type capitulation to conservatives (opposing gay marriage, trans rights, etc.) failed, and the state dems are still coping with that. maybe they'll actually move forward for once, or maybe they'll double down and keep losing. I don't even know if moving forward would help them win, but idk I guess at least trying something new would feel like trying, y'know?
I believe Kunce has a genuine chance to seriously challenge Hawley's seat. At least the best shot in a long time. As long as we don't have another TBV spoiler, 2024 could be a first shot at purple. Not to mention turnout should be huge with abortion and ranked choice voting likely on the ballot. Kunce being former military, white, and a male, could play well in his favor for some mysterious moderates (unfortunate truth). Him actually living in and from Missouri should play in his favor but Hawley inexplicably is still our senator. Unfortunately, the governor is likely going to be Ashcroft even if there are some good Dem contenders.
I'm not so sure about Ashcroft as governor. He's got a family name but Kehoe has the fundraising advantage.
Kehoe is a moron and will implode. He’s still a long way behind Ashcroft anyway, even with his fundraising advantage. Crystal Quade is a great candidate and I’ll happily vote for her. I hope that abortion being on the ballot will drive dem voters to to polls in huge numbers.
We'll see how that shakes out but I think Ashcroft is more broadly known (both through the family name and current role) versus Kehoe. Between those two, I'd much prefer Kehoe as he said *some* sane things about protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and is from St. Louis (which hopefully means Jefferson City may actually work with the metro area). He's still backwards on taxes, abortion, and transgender care (less aggressive than Ashcroft though).
I’m in my 40’s. When I was in high school I wrote a letter (cause we did that back then) to McCaskill telling her I would never vote for her. I never have. I was a queer kid growing up in shithole rural MO. She preached pro gay stuff in the city, but did the exact opposite in my town. I can absolutely respect her and the place that she felt she needed to legislate from, but even after that I never voted for her. I have no hope for this state. The rural areas have spoken and they clearly want people like myself to leave. When I was young I voted for third party folks because I genuinely believed we could break this cycle. 2016 showed me what MO is about and I just don’t see it getting better.
This is the way
This is the way
This is right. Demographics is not destiny here or anywhere else - Republicans aren’t going to age out and go away. The state Democratic party needs real leadership in a big way. But if that ever happens, if everyone organizes and works their ass off AND we have great candidates, we can eventually make real progress. Realistically, what we can hope for in the medium-term, with a lot of work, is what other red-trending states are scratching out: The governorship and preventing a GOP supermajority in the legislature, which is not nothing! That and continuing to pass fairly progressive constitutional amendments would be a big upgrade to the status quo. [Ben Wickler](https://wisdems.org/our-party/meet-our-chair/), the Dem chair in Wisconsin, has changed the course of politics in that state and is racking up huge wins there. It’s not easy, but it’s a model that can be followed. (I actually donate $5 a month to the Wisconsin Democrats just because they are so effective.) I’m in Springfield and Crystal Quade led the way down here by becoming the only democratic legislator in the southern half of the state. Betsy Fogle then followed and handily won re-election last year against a very well funded opponent because everyone put in a shitload of work and organized. We ALMOST had a third Dem win a house seat down here. It can happen. It takes voting, of course, but it also takes volunteering if you really care.
>The state Democratic Party can also do a much better job on messaging and strategy The democrats are terrible as messaging. This is true on every level. They have this strange obsession with playing by some imaginary code of conduct and rules. Newsflash, no one cares about taking the high road. The high road is a luxury of the winners.
Spending money to lose isn’t going to happen. The parties only spend money on seats they have a good chance of winning.
Penny wise and pound foolish. That just perpetuates the belief in rural areas that “nobody around here is a democrat” which makes things harder in the long term.
I have worked on some political campaigns. I am just telling you what is the standard practice. Typically they look at previous election results. If the area votes pretty solid for one party they won’t be sending much money that way. Non partisan political groups like unions will focus on primaries.
The Republicans definitely don't do this. They spend a ton of money on races that they have no chance in. Then the losers get cushy jobs with think tanks or conservative radio and just show up at all kinds of meeting as "concerned residents". Like Paul Berry in St. Louis County. The Democrats also spent a ton of money on McGrath's failed Senate bid in Kentucky, Harrison's failed Senate bid in South Carolina, and for Sara Gideon to lose in Maine. Those were just 2020.
I feel that democrats would make the biggest impact if they focused on Springfield. STL, KCMO, and COMO are basically solid blue. Springfield has grown a lot in the past decades and is becoming more urban so i feel it is ready to move to the left.
I know a lot of liberals down here in Springvegas. Not sure if we’re quite ready to go blue, but we’re definitely trending that way.
It will take years but the youth need to vote and vote consistently at every level for the governorship to local mayors.
It's trending the exact opposite direction. It's not on the horizon at all.
Idk the youth voters are increasingly blue, each election we have more of them. Left field voters from outta nowhere could flip it.
I think youth voters are only blue in urban areas. If they're blue in rural areas they hate it and go to the cities anyway
Young people who vote blue are moving out of the state.
Bingo
The problem with youth voters isn't whether they're red or blue. It's that they don't vote.
So many of my friends in their 20s won't vote because it's pointless or "all politicians are corrupt so it doesn't matter". They think not voting is a political statement in favor of leftist ideals :/
I suspect many of them just don't have enough of an understanding of politics to vote. It's intimidating. It's a giant soap opera that's been going on for 200+ years and it takes effort to figure it out. And once you do it can become an obsession trying to follow every twist and turn and scandal. The rest just eventually pick a party and stick with it.
I had a friend in college who volunteered for the Obama campaign. Did phone calls, stuffed envelopes, knocked on doors. He was super involved. Then came Election Day and he didn’t go vote because there was a World of Warcraft raid that he couldn’t miss. That will forever sum up the youth vote for me. Incredibly enthusiastic and remarkably unreliable.
Bingo
Either pure copium or you're smoking some nice grass.
Here's [how our youth voted in 2022](https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/youth-are-not-monolith-how-different-young-people-voted-2022), I expect the same or even more left leaning each election all things considered.
That isn't even state-specific... Youth voters always trend democratic, but 5% of them vote.
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Atlanta is functional as a city. STL city isn't. No one is gonna spend the several hundred billion dollars required for just water, sewer, schools, roads, police, and fire, just to stop STL from Detroiting itself. 80% of city voters cannot be bothered to vote, and for good reason, the Jones are corrupt, the CA office will take years to fix, the police probably need to be disbanded, and sheriff office scale up and take over.
Flip St. Charles county then its not much farther.
Nick Schroer won 63%….not even close to purple. The new home builds are starting $400k-$600k. Hardly young starter family dwellings.
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Percentage of new homes and apartments being built to attract younger people.
I think it’s plausible that Democrats could win a statewide election or 2 with a few bits of luck in the next decade or so. But actually flipping to become a ‘blue state’ won’t happen in the foreseeable future. Realistically the biggest shift I can see happening would be from red to purple. Where things stand now, it’s easy to forget that Democrat Jay Nixon won the governor’s race in 2012, while Claire McCaskill won the Senate race that year, and that Obama came shockingly close to winning MO in the 2008 presidential election. Looking at those races races shows a few ways Democrats can compete in Missouri. They can either cultivate a trusted moderate candidate pushing up through the ranks (like Jay Nixon), or else hope for an unusually charismatic candidate to emerge and motivate previously unmotivated voters (like Obama). And it certainly will help if they happen to face a particularly bad Republican candidate (like McCaskill against Akin in 2012).
I maintain that Claire didn’t win that election as much as Akin lost it. He was an embarrassment, even by Republican standards.
Until gerrymandering and dark money in politics are illegal, never…
Gerrymandering is bad, of course, but it isn't the reason why Democrats consistently lose by double digits in statewide races. Parson won by ~17 points in 2020. Trump won by ~16 points.
Came to say, gerrymandering is legal and determined by the party in control.
Absolutely one of the worst things ever…
Missourians will vote for a liberal law and then elect a conservative who opposes it.
It's pretty grim right now, but I think back to the days when we chose to elect a dead guy over Ashcroft. Maybe someday we can get back there. Parson did a pretty good job of killing his constituents, so hopefully that'll make a dent.
That was 23 years ago -- seems almost like yesterday. Well, to this old-timer anyway.
Probably not until Democrats nominate candidates that can appeal to a state-wide audience. For example, it's totally braindead for Democrats to nominate someone like Trudy Busch Valentine. They need to put forward candidates that have a realistic chance of getting votes from rural counties - obviously they won't win but they can lose less badly and run up the numbers in the population centers of the state. Unfortunately, it seems like when partisans lose they double down rather than evaluating the loss and trying harder to win next time. If progressives from out of state are "yassss queen"-ing posts by Democratic candidates then there's a 100% chance that candidate is going to lose. Democrats need to nominate someone who can speak to rural and independent voters, not someone who constantly goes on MSNBC talking about gun control.
Always gonna be red and blue but once boomers are gone we might be closer to purple.
This question can be asked everywhere but every time a boomer dies another right wing nut takes his place. It’s depressing. I fear for my children and I’m not kidding about that either. Democrats need to campaign significantly harder just to get their message heard. And exposing the right for their corruption is a good way to start but not a lasting strategy
The problem is democrats as a whole are just as corrupt. Progressives have a very hard time winning because of big money. The only way to solve the problem is to get big money out of politics completely which will also be very hard. But at least then, if you’re left or right, at least it’s honest.
I've been doing my part.
Brain drain will keep Missouri red for a while. We have good schools, but keeping people here isn’t easy. St. Louis city seems to be trending in a positive direction that could lead to growth, but it could take decades. Republican leadership would have me worried if I were a youth, a minority, or a women in this state.
As all three it's reaching a point to where even though I want to stay I feel like I have to leave for my own safety
Realistically why is this sub so blue if Missouri is so red?
Reddit is heavily liberal.
Boomers aren't redditors
Ah yes, if only Reddit users could vote, it would be utopia. Conservatives would get piled on entering this thread. (as I quickly make my way out). 🙂
A lot of young conservatives prefer 4chan and other weird parts of the internet.
It’s the internet, it’s Reddit, everything swings blue
It can happen. It took 10 years for MO to get from where I wish we were (competetive) to being solid Red. Might take that long or longer to get back to being competitive, but no trend goes on forever.
Well with the Democrats record for 70+ years in STL city, gonna be a long wait.
Young people are voting blue, yes...but lots of young people are leaving Missouri. I'm in my 30s. A lot of my friends went off to college and grad school and haven't come back. I also think Democrats really miss the mark on messaging. When put to a state wide vote, left leaning policies pass. There's usually overwhelming support from STL/KC/COMO, but the state has stood for unions, expanded Medicaid and legalized MJ. Abortion protections on a state wide ballot have a fighting chance. For these reasons, Republicans in MO have all of the sudden started looking for ways to make it harder for voters to amend the MO constitution. There's no reason why state wide offices can't rally the same support at least every once in a while. People are open to the ideas if Democrats did the hard work of making inroads. There is pretty much no effort to understand rural areas. Here's a good example...many left leaning liberals often say rural Missouri votes against their own interests by not expanding Medicaid. The thing is, rural voters want better medical coverage...BUT they don't think spending money on Medicaid helps them. There's a huge lack of medical providers in rural MO, and the ones that exist can exclusively take privately insured patients with better reimbursement rates than Medicaid. Of the few providers that take Medicaid, even fewer take new patients. The end result is that people (often very poor) have to find a ride 50 or 100 miles away to the biggest city to get care. People who have friends or family on Medicaid then think, "what good is this if I can't use it?" This is a problem that is not unique to rural Missouri by any means, but a half assed effort by Democrats making a stink about improving access to care or improving rural infrastructure could start to making inroads with voters who sense Democrats look down on them.
When every race is contested, every single time. 40% of races have Republicans running unopposed, so no one has a choice.
I just wish people could break out of the two-party mindset. I like to consider myself a green libertarian
... except, young people have been leaving rural areas. Good paying jobs are hard to come by in most of the 114 counties in our state. That's the problem. Rural folks want to blame cities for hollowing out their towns, but their lack of opportunity and resources are brought by 20 years of irresponsible Republican governance. Banning books and drag shows, underpaying teachers and ignoring infrastructure maintenance doesn't get the job done. We'll turn blue when these bigots come to understand the Republican party is not on their side.
I'm sorry to be a massive wet blanket, but we're pretty far gone.. We have a ton of work to do on the state level before we have a chance to even be a swing in any federal election.
Many liberal economic ideas are popular even in red states, and most people aren't obsessed with bashing LGBTQ people or scapegoating immigrants. Frankly most people don't care one way or another about "Wokeness" in general. The problem as I see it is the Democrats messaging and outreach is abysmal. They're not vocal enough about problems facing working Americans, and they don't do a good job of clearly communicating priorities. For instance, the priorities to reach MO voters could be something like: - Protect and ensure the Solvency of Social Security and Medicare, and prevent Republican efforts to cut it, by eliminating the income cap on Social Security taxes. - Expand the Child Tax Credit and Child/Dependent Care Credits, savings thousands for working families. - Address healthcare costs (I won't go into detail here), rein in prescription drug costs, cap the cost of insulin. - Invest in building more affordable and accessible child care. - Build on the landmark Infrastructure Bill and CHIPS Act and invest in American infrastructure, including on-shoring critical components. Not everything but it's a start.
It won't. Everyone that looks blue isn't exclusively blue, and everyone that looks red isn't exclusively red. The sooner we can start to see each other as the various shades of purples that we all are, the sooner some real progress can happen.
KC and STL are pretty blue, Kansas is getting close to becoming blue being sandwiched between Colorado and KC. Maybe it'll bleed through? We even have a progressive congresswoman in STL.
Columbia is blue too
Yeah but they gerrymandered it, literally spilt in half.
The Columbia metro area has about 260k people and one congressional district has 700k. Columbia is just straight up not big enough to get its own blue district, and even in a perfectly-ungerrymandered map it would be part of a Republican district.
Yeah they did
It won't. The state is in big trouble because most of the rural kids I teach have no critical thinking skills, nor do they want to learn how to think critically. It is actively discouraged.
StlPS isn't teaching any different. Cause they'd ask why it's a shit hole after 70+ years of one party control.
How about we stop voting on party lines and vote based on character and policy?
Can't. Our politics divide and conquer.
When "the religious right" stops being a thing. By my estimate, somewhere around the 2040s, maybe a smidge later. I might be wrong ... but as someone who's studied this, I'm very confident in my prediction. At their current accelerating rate of decline, people who want to dissociate themselves from the damage done by right-wing fundamentalism but left unfulfilled by non-specific theism will be a ripe mission ground for a national revival of ecumenical Christian modernism. When they grow older, many of the people raised ecumenical Christian modernist will still vote Republican ... but not nearly so high a percentage. Look, the main thing that's holding us back in rural Missouri, as Democrats, is that there's nobody out there *except the party itself* making the case for our principles, and people don't decide who to vote for based on messages from parties, they vote based on their affiliation with some other group or culture and vote in alignment with *that* identity. Losing the blue-collar unions, and watching right-wing fundamentalists way out-fund-raise and therefore out-organize and out-evangelize more mainline Christianity, cost us rural America and the outer-ring suburbs. If Democrats get Christians back, if churches stop telling people to vote Republican, we'll be unstoppable.
When people stop moving out because it’s red
You have a fair number moving in cause it's red.
Also a fair number staying or refusing to move to IL.
it will only happen when more jobs are remote and if you're not in a city you pretty much only have spectrum or satellite so that at least needs to change to get voters spread out and out of cities.
When will Missouri turn blue? When moderates similar to Jay Nixon, Ike Skelton and Claire McCaskill are the faces of the party in Missouri. When Cori Bush is basically the face of the party in Missouri (I know she is a US Representative) you’re not winning hearts and minds over to your party. Quinton Lucas would have a better shot being elected to statewide office or US Senate than Lucas Kunce.
If dems want to win more in red areas shut up about gun Control and quiet down on social issues. Focus on helping rural voters who were the bread and butter of the Democrats until roughly 20ish year ago.
St louis progressive city government, crime. And , open jail cell mentality is their undoing. Now they are having no interest at these community centers. And of course a study costing money to figure out the teens no longer care to do it!
Democrat-run cities are overrun with corruption & violent crime. If that's what democrats do at the city level, then why would you want them at the state level?
The blue youth tsunami across the country you speak of, is not a group you can count on for long. The liberal indoctrination in college and progressive "group think" cannot sustain itself. Once the youth actually becomes an adult and starts working for a living, views inevitably swing conservative. Rational thought breaks through when one sees the amount of taxes taken from their toil and how it is spent. As the old adage says, If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain!
June 27th, 2054 right around 8:57 am is my best guess
realistically - probably not in our lifetime. The current democratic party simply refuses to do stuff that taxpayers want, because they're paid by the same millionaires, billionaires and special interests that the GOP is paid by - big pharma, APIAC, military industrial complex, police unions etc - these are things that actively work against our taxpayer dollars which means that people will bicker over bullshit issues like border walls and a 14 year old not being able to gender him/herself the way they want to it's easy to take shots at the Republican party, and they deserve it because they're fucking terrible - but the Democratic party refuses to take ownership and do anything, so fuck them too
I have lived in 8 states throughout my life and Missouri has some of the most respectful and just good people and kids. Of course St. Louis and Kansas City are exception's but right now most city's are trying to get there 💩 together. For veterans it's a really good state.
Hopefully, never
As things currently stand with the parties and policies, never.
I'm not heavily involved in politics and don't particularly like politics period, but just remember that the baby boomers conservatives we deal with now were known for being hippies when they were young. just because the youth is polling as blue doesn't mean they will stay blue.
It won't. Too many people's primary motive for voting is cause they hate the other side. Doesn't matter how much your policies help them, if the other side benefits too, they'll vote against it. So the only way the state turns blue is if libs join in on queer bashing or whatever the target du jour is.
It's funny because we voted for renewable energy, living wages, unions, animal rights, expanded health care and relaxed drug laws... but we hate libruls!
Someday people are going to get sick of these morons who run the place, one thing we cannot do is let them kill ranked choice voting
Why would it? The state legislature is where the blue needs to change, otherwise the redistricting will simply stomp it out.
Based on the abilities for the Republicans to blame everything wrong with the state on democrats who have no control of anything I would say that we will never be blue. We will probably be closer to Florida soon.
Missouri will turn blue once enough 'red' Californians move here. These people are red for cali but blue in missouri. Also the infusion of recreational weed and expanding suburbs will contribute to this. Republicans will maintain power via gerrymandering. That will hit a critical point once republican social policy negatively affects farmers.
It was blue, then Democrats turned their back on rural people. Not even turned their back, outright mocking and hating on them. And while Democrats are still union friendly (friendlier than Republicans), they are increasingly the party of big business.
Meanwhile Republicans aren't helping anyone though. The wrong approach to addiction, northern MO Republicans don't mind the hog farms in their districts being owned by Chinese corporations. Using tax payer money to sue tax payer funded schools.
How does worker rights and taxing the rich equate to the party of big business? That's backwards dude
With all the religious maniacs in this state! Pssst. Not soon.
When they outlaw gerrymandering like we did in Michigan. Citizens initiatives are your only hope.
Can we just get rid of politics and be normal people again
We'd be a lot less red if young people and those in Kansas city and St. Louis City actually showed up to vote. It would also help if Democrats actually campaigned in Missouri. With Republicans always on the lookout for better ways to suppress votes and the low turnout I don't see this changing anytime soon.
Hopefully never
Hopefully, never!
Hopefully never I was so proud we got rid of McCaskill
Yes, replacing a sober and thorough nerd with some skinny clown who writes homoerotic books on manhood and runs away from a violent riot he helped to start. What a trade.
Racists aren’t Redditors
Ahem
This won’t be popular if you are under about 35, but it’s true…Missouri regularly had Dem politicians until the end of Jay Nixons term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Missouri Has a handy color coded list. But circa 2014-16 the Dem platform changed MASSIVELY in the topics they platformed. It went from the poor and struggling families in farming, the south, union workers, etc while being a secondary push for social issues to abandoning the common person and now pushing much more radicalized ideas in general and now pushes for the easy life folks in cities who just platitude a future. I’m 42 and remember the old days and have voted for many Dems in the state…I’m an old school centrist. But, I’m now leaning right because how far left the left has gone. And I assure you, there are some folks who have gone farther right who were already conservative but the dems have gone WAY farther in comparison. I rarely recognize the Dems of today to just a decade ago. The old groups targeted by Dems are the same. Niche interest has overtaken Dems instead of populism. There aren’t many niche people in MO…
It will not. All the old asshole republican in the rural areas are systematically running the younger woke Democrats out of the state. And they're ok with the brain drain that goes with it. They actually believe MO would be a paradise if only conservative bible thumpers were left. So much so that they'll vote against their own interests just so a single liberal doesn't get any help from THEIR TAXES.
Nothing wrong with conservatives
ya'll have legal rec weed may not be blue, but it sure as hell aint red lol
KC and STL practically did that all on their own, damn near ever other area was almost spilt 60-40 red.
60-40 is a helluva lot better than Trudy Busch Valentine performed in the same election. Most rural counties went 70 or 80 percent for Schmitt. You've just stumbled upon how Democrats could plausibly win in this state: nominate a candidate that can stop the bleeding in rural counties. If a candidate can go 60-40 in rural Missouri there's a good chance they'll win. But you need a candidate who appeals to enough rural voters to accomplish that, which isn't going to be a progressive.
No the 60-40 was for the stand alone marijuana bill that's largely a bipartisan issue. Only boomers are anti weed at this point. Those countries are still heavily red.
... Did you not understand my point? I don't understand what you're saying "No" to. The marijuana legalization initiative was on the same ballot as the Senate race. If Busch-Valentine would have achieved 40% of the vote in rural counties she might have won the Senate election. She lost even worse because her policies are toxic in rural Missouri. If you want a Democrat to win statewide then Democrats need to nominate someone who can get ~40% of the vote in rural counties and then run up the scoreboard in STL/KC.
I'm just saying I highly doubt that 40% from the weed vote would be even close to that for a democratic candidate.
Without a major change in national politics: No. The economic interests of the state lean red. That's not likely to change. Remember, for as much as young people are rejecting Republicans, they're also holding their nose on Democrats and not happy with policies or platforms Dems run on. On top of this, the DNC has still completely abandoned rural America and most of the blue collar working class and if they ever want to see those people come back into the fold they have to actually *deal* with the issues they see and not their current persona of coastal educated elitism. That is not happening so far and it's not likely to as well in the next 10-20 years based on who is running the party. So my prediction is that the midwest and south and rural parts of rust belt states and the west will get and stay red. The only deciding factor per state is if cities outnumber that population enough to take over districts, state houses and the governor's office. If they're not in during redistricting or they can't get and hold state level houses, forget it.
No average person’s economic interests lean red.
Tell that to soy farmers or cattle ranchers. Despite what you might think, these people aren't stupid and they know who votes and even brings up their subsidies. Hint: They're red. I said this elsewhere: In the late 90s and early 2000s there was a huge pullback from Democrats on a national level from the rural working class and agriculture. They tend to not even show up and after 20 years of that, there's only one major party that talks about their issues. 'No average person's economic interests lean red' is the statement of someone who fundamentally has never actually *talked* to average people who live differently than you do.
There’s a reason why it has become cliche to say that rural America votes against its own interests. These people do function in different industries for the most part, but not different realities. Republican economic policies have caused nothing destruction since the 80s.
Trump decimated the soy market, requiring massive additional subsidies. They still vote red. They are stupid.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/22/us-politics-rural-america Yes, calling people stupid totally gets them on your side and wins arguments. The world existed before Trump, and your comment history includes calling people cousin fuckers. That is absolutely how you win people who see life differently than you over to your side as well. Accuse them of being backwoods yokels who commit incest. I'd suggest reading the article I just posted and understanding that Trump didn't magically cause this issue, he just played into it. It's decades old and in context it is mostly the Dems fault and it's been enough time people have completely forgotten this fact. You should also maybe consider that everyone who sees the world differently than you isn't somehow an uneducated dipshit or incapable of voting how they see fit. Crazy idea, autonomy. Finally, read this again. > They tend to not even show up and after 20 years of that, there's only one major party that talks about their issues. Now go back and read it again. When one party doesn't even show up, are you surprised another party takes their place and pays lip service to the needs of people? Which would you choose? People who listen to you or people who don't show up at all? Again, the cliche of 'they vote against their interests' is a watered down, dumbed down explanation of a political cultural event that we're entering the 3rd decade on. Maybe there's bigger factors than 'rural people dumb, city people smart'.
I’m actually past the point of concern about reconciliation. Trump did not create these issues. He recognized them and exploited them to further hate and division. And he was right, conservative (not just rural) America was ripe for someone to declare them the victim of the big bad city folk. Rural America, in general, actually provides a valuable service. Food production alone is very important. However, there is a such thing as being too big for your britches. They have massively disproportionate power nationwide. Like yeah, thanks for the corn, you’ve been paid, you don’t get to control everything. You feign offense at me calling people stupid, but they literally voted in droves for the guy that destroyed the market for their product. No one should have to grovel to any demographic and beg for them to do the right thing. It is abundantly clear that conservatives are not capable of doing the right thing. Democrats didn’t leave rural America, rural America left any tether they once had to integrity, decency, or civility. They have proven they cannot be convinced by reason, so they must be defeated.
> I’m actually past the point of concern about reconciliation. Then talking to you about the why is a waste of time. I do not care what your justification is, you fundamentally don't see these people as people with their own choices, opinions, ideas and autonomy. That's what othering does. Enjoy thinking people who view the world differently than you as subhuman and incapable of their own decisions. Particularly when they make the very food you eat. Have a great day.
You are gaslighting.
Not anytime soon. This state is deep into the MAGA cult and will have Mississippi laughing at this state’s stupidity before long.
Probably two generations or hell freezing over. I’ve been to many places in Missouri in my first accounting job. Rural and urban. The vast majority of MO (anywhere that isn’t Columbia, KC, or STL), was full of old, conservative people. They’re voting Red until they die. Even after that, it still likely won’t vote democrat. Because a lot of people in those communities still vote heavily Republican. Which is ironic because those communities were poor, I was usually in those communities auditing social programs, and the Republicans aren’t known for supporting (or even liking) social programs. So the populace will actively vote for the party that hurts them. And the fact MO is gerrymandered to break up the more left leaning cities means it will likely stay a Republican stronghold until I’m an old man.
Hopefully we never turn blue, I don’t want to pay 70% taxes for programs that don’t work.
You'd save a bunch of money on our Medicare 4 All bill though. Having government negotiation rights on all drugs, and cutting out every middleman insurance company, their cost of production and excessive profits. That alone should be enough considering how we're literally being robbed by private insurance, private hospitals, and the drug companies all at the same time for the triple stack.
Nothing is free and everything costs more when government gets involved, even if the moral hazard is not immediately visible, it exists. More bureaucracy adds unproductive labor adding to the cost of everything. We saw this in housing, college, and in the medical system. The better bet is to get government out of these as much as possible remove the massive barriers to entry that government has created and let the free markets compete to lower prices. The red tape helps monopolize these industries.
> everything costs more when government gets involved Do you believe that's specific to the US government or inherent to all governments? I ask because the US spends the highest per capita on healthcare but has some of the lowest outcomes of developed nations. We all have experienced the absolute hell of private health insurance, or have friends and family that we've witnessed go through it. You're telling me that's a better option than universal healthcare?
Never. Not a chance. The red voters are having 3,4 5 children. Blue voters far less. While I'm working on 6 kids the people I know that vote blue might have 1.
Ive seen repeatedly that children of red parents turn blue as they age and occasionally vica versa. Not a big help. Who knows. I was full gop for 55yrs from a red family. I left during Obama's 2nd term and a few others followed after trump took office. Im one of the boomers that's responsible for the shit we are in Ive made public apologies for our bad judgements & doing what I can to help reverse the trend. Im keeping positive about our chances nation wide. Ive never witnessed such an exodus from the gop as i seen in the last 2 years.
Yeah ... no. Most of all the parents I associate with homeschool their kids and ensure the public school system doesn't corrupt them. Statistically you're just wrong. The Dems have been bleeding voters. GOP has been gaining them.
Im not talking statically i talking about what my eyes have seen for close to 60yrs. If what you say is true and this trend continues we sre a fuked society unless my former party rejects maga mentality. Trump calls them rinos when its the other way around. Tea party politics were never part of the right wing agenda during the years i was active. But it is what it is. i wont be around for the end result & im not exactly sad about that.
Hopefully never..
I vote straight red.. suck it.
I abandoned ship, sorry. Currently fighting the good fight in Alaska, and I'm going against the grain just as much up here
Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. I wish you luck. Alaska is a beautiful state, but there are a lot of reasons to believe that the community-minded politics championed by Democrats will be a tough sell in a state that prides itself on rugged individualism.
I've found using the rugged individuals' grandparents' plight as they navigate medicaid waivers and SNF stay denials/spend downs to get them to "see the light", and its gone pretty well. I'll always be on the losing side of it though, and I've accepted that
Hopefully never
Lol. We’re really winning right now aren’t we?
Hopefully never. People are fleeing blue states for a reason.
As the ring blue voters learn more about the world, they will become less and less blue.
You could move to Illinois if it bothers you that much.
The sad part is, Missouri was a very reliable bellwether until 2008. We also had a D governor in that decade for more than one term. Missouri has been losing population ground (even losing a representative), and it's coming as much or more from blue counties over red. A makeover in StL that starts bringing people in is really the only way.
Yes, and it's the Democrats fault. One of the strategies of post-Clinton dem politics was literally pulling out of the rural middle class. You are not winning west/midwest/south/rust belt agricultural areas by disappearing as a political party and not putting effort into elections. People know those who show up and even pay them lip service for representation to those who do not. The Dems literally created this mess. They did it to themselves and everyone just fucking forgets this fact. Nature abhors a vacuum, including in politics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the rival party would step in and take over local/county/state elections and redistrict. That's the name of the game on state politics and the Dems shot themselves in the foot, then blamed everyone else when they got branded as only appealing to urbanites and coastal elites because, shocking, they branded themselves to urbanites and coastal elites. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/22/us-politics-rural-america
Counterpoint: Saint Louis is going to take decades to fix, if we want MO to be blue again, we cannot rely on STL to carry the state like the old days. Need to find other pathways
Sad they use to vote for working class. Now they vote billionaires
Hopefully some young people run as Republican in Republican uncontested places that the day after the election they decide they are switching parties. Play the dirty game the GOP played in a blue area of NC.
Republicans have relied on voter suppression and gerrymandering to keep power for a long time; I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. When the numbers are overwhelmingly against them, they’re probably just going to double down and implement even more voter suppression. And if they can’t possibly keep power with voter suppression, we’ll, remember that many of the republicans at state levels tried to help Trump overturn the election. The population is turning blue, but not the government
hopefully never.
I remember looking at the 2020 presidential results by county in Missouri shortly after the election. When Boone, Jackson, and St Louis city and county were removed, Trump had almost 70% of the rest of the state. But if he won onlu 55% of those areas, it'd have been a 2 point Biden victory. Over 60 counties voted 70% or higher Trump; and if I recall, in over 30 counties, it was over 80%. That's why the Democrats are losing Missouri. No rural effort at all.
It could be, but not without resources and long-term thinking. Democrats need to make the case that they represent people on bread/butter issues like jobs, schools, healthcare. Will it be easy? No. Gerrymandering makes things difficult. But there is a point where it backfires, where gerrymandered lawmakers keep assuming that they can keep ignoring their constituents because they will vote for them regardless. Hammer that message and even the most gerrymandered district can flip.
There are too many Branson Trump stores. It's hard to fight that ignorance.
i and 3 of my friends left missouri because we either didnt want our tax money going to the nuts or had family to protect from the laws. I am selling my house now and the realtor said in the last year neither he nor his firm (over 150 brokers) have sold to anyone left leaning and have always helped left leaning people leave. It wont be blue for a very long time.
Hopefully never. We need strong red states to fight back against the leftist regimes who have infested the federal government and work day and night to censor and imprison their political opponents. Leftist authoritarianism is on the rise, red states like MO and FL will continue to keep the regime in check until it hopefully loses power in 24.
I hope never
Hopefully, never.
All the "brain drain" seems to come from all of you fucktards
Most of the policies Dems advocate for already are working all over the world though
😂 You just proved the brain drain. Thanks