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Survey Says: MAGA Red Missouri a Bellwether State Again? [1]

['Dan K', 'Sabrina Haake', 'Chitown Kev', 'Nanny Ogg']

Date: 2026-09-10  

Times were when my state of Missouri was widely considered a political bellwether state … from 1904 to 2004 … correctly voting for the winner of the U.S. presidential election in 25 out of 26 contests. The only exception during this period was the 1956 election, when the state supported Democrat Adlai Stevenson over the eventual national winner, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I remember the state legislature being perennially majority Democrat in the fashion of Willard Duncan Vandiver, a Democratic U.S. Representative and former president of Southeast Missouri State University(Cape Girardeau, Missouri) who is credit with making famous the state’s nickname, “The Show Me State” … “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.”

An interesting side note. Right inside the main lobby of the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine in Columbia where my daughter professes, there is a portrait of Mr. Vandiver giving his famous 1899 speech at a naval banquet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during which he declared the afore-mentioned state motto. One of the major thoroughfares in Columbia, Missouri is also named in his honor. And coincidentally, both the Democratic and Republican city campaign offices are on that street.

Columbia, Missouri along with the two major metro areas at the Eastern and Western ends of the state … St. Louis and Kansas City, continue to be bastions of BLUE in the now state-wide sea of Red which as far as I can remember began in earnest with the mid-term elections of 2010. Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” found fertile soil in the vast Missouri countryside washed by the wide wide Missouri and the Mighty Mississippi rivers. And seemingly overnight the state’s politics took on an ugly “anti-everything”, virulent racialized jingoistic, xenophobic tenor. The Republicans swept into the state legislature in Jefferson City. They have had a super-majority ever since as well as the governor’s mansion. Democrats somehow managed to eke out a few successful state-wide offices, prominently Governor Jay Nixon and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. But not any more. All state-wide offices are occupied by Republicans and voracious gerrymandering has ensured that very few districts outside of the metro areas remain Democratic.

There’s currently a ferocious legal battle going on regarding Republican attempts to strip away one of the two congressional seats held by Democrats … that of U.S. Representative Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. The majority Republican-appointed state Supreme Court ruled against the attempted heist(engineered from the White House by guess who). Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh has ruled against it. But yesterday the Republican state Attorney General, who is facing a possible contempt hearing before the state Supreme Court for disregarding their ruling, has once again requested an emergency ruling from Kavanaugh. We shall see. Corrupt is as corrupt does.

But the times they are a-changin’. The majority of the folks are now seemingly tiring of the Republican shenanigans … serial corruption, disregard of voter approved referendums and lemming-like obsequiousness to the Orange Menace, aka Krasnov. I have been seeing it develop slowly in the newspapers of my ruby red county. And now the gold standard St. Louis University/YouGov poll is showing the same trend … as reported by the St. Louis Magazine online site:

Trump, Kehoe are both underwater in Missouri, poll shows President Donald Trump is underwater in Missouri—and now so is Gov. Mike Kehoe. A SLU/YouGov poll of 900 likely voters released this morning shows that for the first time in six years, the number of Missourians who disapprove of Trump outweighs the number who approve. Forty-eight percent approve, a decrease of five percentage points since February; 52 percent disapprove. And as for Kehoe? His popularity has dropped dramatically since SLU/YouGov started asking voters about him. In February 2025, 51 percent approved of Kehoe and 32 percent disapproved. That dropped to 50 percent last February, with negatives rising to 40 percent. The new poll shows his approval rating has since dropped to just 40 percent, with 49 percent expressing disapproval. https://www.stlmag.com/news/trump-kehoe-poll-slu-yougov

November 3, 2026 is fast on its way. May it be the BLUEST of days. But me and mine are not going to wait till then. As we always do … neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will stay us from donning our all BLUE attire and heading to the Jefferson county court house in Hillsboro, Missouri to cast our early vote.

Soon come.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/9/10/800096503/community/is-maga-red-missouri-now-a-bellweather-state-again-survey-says/

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