Early election returns often create a misleading picture about what the final statewide result in Missouri looks like.

I re-watched 2022 election night coverage of Missouri to see how the vote count shifted throughout the night.

Here's a thread on counting / reporting bias. 🧵:


I rewatched KSDK's 2022 coverage, which in turn appears to have used data from the Associated Press. The screenshots in the prior post come from that coverage.

Different election night talliers like the NYT or DecisionDeskHQ may have somewhat different reporting biases.

(1/29)

In just one week, Missouri will head to the polls to vote for President, US Senate, Governor, and various other statewide and local offices.

Here is a brief recap of Missouri's electoral geography and a quick thread on why statewide Republicans start off with a big advantage 🧵: About 55% of Missouri's population lives in its two principal metro areas (~35% in St. Louis and ~20% in Kansas City).

Another 20% of Missouri's population lives in six smaller metro areas (Springfield, Columbia, Joplin, Jefferson City, St. Joseph, and Cape Girardeau).

(1/15)

Yesterday, the Missouri SOS office certified that the Sports Betting Amendment received enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.

However, the Amendment potentially could be on somewhat shaky ground due to issues stemming from congressional redistricting:

Thread:🧵 In Missouri, "petitions proposing constitutional changes must be signed by eight percent of [the previous cycle's gubernatorial] voters in any six of the eight congressional districts"



(1/21) sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/Elec…

Missouri's Sports Betting Amendment would not have hit the signature requirement if the SOS office used current CD district lines for the signature requirement.

By old lines the signature threshold in MO1 was 25,632 (the Amendment got 25,714 in MO1), by new lines, it is >27,550. For a Constitutional Amendment Initiative Petition to reach the ballot in Missouri, the proposed Initiative Petition needs to receive signatures amounting to 8% of the previous gubernatorial vote in 6 of 8 congressional districts.

Here is the table from the SOS website:

Last week, Congressman Luetkemeyer announced he would not seek re-election to Missouri's 3rd congressional district in 2024.

Many expect a contentious primary to replace him, so I've looked at which areas of the 3rd district hold the most sway in the GOP primary.

Thread🧵: In 2020, Trump carried the current MO-3 by 26.1% (depicted in the image below) and in 2022 Schmitt carried the district by 21.2%.

Victory in the GOP primary in Missouri's 3rd district will in all probability be tantamount to winning the general.

(1/26)

Many are aware that Missouri was first colonized by the French, but it may surprise some to know that there is an endangered dialect of French still spoken in Missouri by a few descendants of those French settlers.

🧵Thread on Missouri French and Old Mines, MO: Missouri French (or "Paw-Paw French" as it is informally known) was once spoken in French settlements in the northern half of the Louisiana Territory (then known as the "Illinois Country"). Most of the initial French settlers of the Illinois Country came from Canada...

(1/14)

Redistricting saw some notable changes to Missouri's 1st congressional district. Many speculate that these shifts were designed to hurt Rep. Cori Bush, who is facing a primary challenge.

My analysis? The new map is only slightly worse for Cori Bush than the old map.

Thread 🧵: The 2020 census found that the population of Missouri's 1st congressional district (2010s lines) was 714,746.

Missouri (which kept 8 districts) had a population of 6,154,913.

This meant the target district population was now 769,364, and MO-1 had to grow by 54,618.

(1/21)