In the 2016 general election, there will only be 70 races in which Missouri voters will have a choice to vote for a Republican or a Democrat for state representative. In the other 93 state house districts, there will only be a candidate from one party or the other.
University of Missouri Political Science Professor Peverill Squire says this brings questions of democracy to light.
“For the notions of the theory of democracy, you would like to have an alternative when you go to the polling booth. In a lot of places here, when you go to vote for your state representative, or state senator, you will only have one real choice,” Squire said. “And so that’s hard and it does suggest that particularly in Republican districts that are not competitive the democrats don’t have a voice, and nobody to sort of, make their case for them.”
Krista Stark is the executive director of the Southwest Missouri Democrats, a region where many Republicans run unopposed.
“There are more democrats in the state, and we know that because the statewide races show that. But we have such a hard time not only getting them elected but even finding people that are willing to run because it is so an unfairly made system,” Stark said.” But there is those of us that are in democratic leadership that have decided that we’re going to go up and try to work on legislation passed.”
For Jonathon Prouty, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, having both parties on every ballot isn’t necessary. He says the people vote by choosing to not to fill a vacancy.
“In a lot of these districts, a Republican is going to win, with or without a Democratic opponent. Generally, I believe that having someone fill a ballot slot is not going to affect the outcome of an election greatly,” Prouty said.
Prouty says part of this equation is that Missouri is fairly segregated by party: and that Democrats tend to have highly saturated districts.
“Democrats have a number of precincts that vote 90-95 percent, those don’t exist for the Republican Party. Our best precincts tend to be 60-65 percent, maybe slightly higher. But republicans in Missouri are a lot more spread out,” Prouty said.
But Stark argues that’s only true because of gerrymandering when the districts are redrawn every 10 years.
“I feel like sometimes they can do whatever they want. They have pre-pass, I mean either party would start to feel like that if the other major party was always in the minority or if you have so many seats,” Stark said.
Squire says it the significant time commitment to become a state legislator is another factor.
“You have, in Missouri, five months where you have to be in Jefferson City, there are other demands on your time when the legislature is not in session. So you are asking people to give up time they would devote to other occupations, or family or other activities they would normally do to serve in the legislature, and that’s a big sacrifice. It’s also hard to get people to run because politics is a very competitive very nasty business today,” Squire said.
Stark says it if difficult to find candidates to run when they are likely to lose. Candidates also have to campaign every two years, which can be really trying.
“I tell candidates, you may have to do it two times three times in a row, but we are eventually going to have success here. And I will keep working at it until we have a democrat win down here. That is kind of my mission in life,” Stark said.
Squire says now that there are very few close races, the main competition for legislators comes from inside the party, in the primary process. Currently in the state house, there are 56 Republicans and 24 Democrats who ran unopposed in 2014, so the never faced a challenge from outside the party to get their position.
“And certainly there are a number of Republicans in this election who have been threatened with a challenge from the right, on a variety of different topics,” Squire said. “And so that certainly makes them more concerned about towing the party line and protecting their conservative flanks and it may change their behavior to be perhaps more conservative than they might otherwise be if they had to worry about some opposition from their political left.”
District lines will be redrawn again after the next national census in 2020.