Jeanne Kirkton was out canvassing a few weeks ago along Lilac Avenue in Webster Groves, an old rail-line suburb 5 miles west of St. Louis. Lilac is a street of modest ranch houses and fine old trees, where lots of longtime residents – some well into their 80s – live next door to homes where yappy dogs pose a threat to the slumber of newborns. Kirkton is a Democrat running for the Missouri House. The first voter she encounters on the 600 block of Lilac is an older woman who promptly declares herself a Republican. Kirkton asks her whether she supports stem-cell research. When the woman says she does, Kirkton agrees, and informs her that “that’s an issue where I differ with my opponent.”

That description opens an article in Governing magazine about how suburban areas in most of the country, with the exception of the South and the Southwest, are turning blue. The article zeros in particularly on  races in St. Louis and St. Charles counties, but what it says about those races would apply also to Jefferson, Platte, Clay and Jackson counties, not to mention a host of places throughout the nation. It’s worth a look.