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As always, the plural of anecdote is not data.
Attorney General Precincts Reporting 3515 of 3515
Gibbons, Mike REP 323,493 100.0%
Koster, Chris DEM 118,649 34.3%
Donnelly, Margaret DEM 117,863 34.1%
Harris, Jeff DEM 86,424 25.0%
Williams, Molly DEM 23,097 6.7%Total Votes 669,526
In the last few days I’ve had a number of conversations with good Democrats in my area about the outcome of the Democratic Attorney General primary. A husband and wife split, one for Chris Koster and one for Margaret Donnelly. Another individual told me they gave money to Koster and voted for Donnelly. This person is fine with Koster and will support him in the general election. Another individual told me they gave money to Donnelly and voted for Koster. And finally, one individual told me they supported and liked Koster, but voted for Molly Williams “so she’d get some votes.”
Go figure.
If I could ever figure this politics thing out I think I might have a chance some day at amassing real power. It doesn’t look like that’ll ever happen.
Koster won with almost 2/3 of Democrats voting for someone else and he had to spend a fortune to eak out that victory. Yes, if Donnelly had eaked out a victory the numbers would be the same. But eaking out a victory against someone who outspent everyone in the state would be a show of strength.
So what does that mean for Democrats in Missouri in November and our electoral votes? In my opinion it means that there is a lot of pressure on Jay Nixon to do more than simply win the governor’s race.
We have (on the negative side) a Democratic presidential candidate who is going to have issues because parts of Missouri are racist and who needs HUGE turnout in the blue areas to win but who (on the positive side) has a vaunted ground game. We have two stongly contested congressional races in the state, one of which is in an area that we need to win big (I’m guessing that’s a positive but who knows). We have a weakened AG candidate who is going to have to spend time convincing DEMOCRATS to vote for him (a negative) but who might convince his moderate Republican friends to cross over (a positive ONLY if he can convince them to vote for Jay and Obama too).
And then we have Jay Nixon. Who should win his race. And who, at this point, is the only non-controversial Democrat towards the top of the ticket. Back in January I thought that the governor’s race could carry the state blue at the presidential level – but that’s when Blunt was running. Now I still think Jay can win – but I hope he’s up to the task of driving all GOTV in the state and reassuring people that Democrats as a whole are the way to go.