Democratic Rep. John Wright said in an email Tuesday morning that his plan was to “rotate to a couple of different watch parties” on Election Night. His run to represent Missouri’s 47th district against Chuck Bayse was one of the election’s highly contested races.
So we traveled around Columbia, first stopping by Basye’s noisy party at Inside Columbia Magazine. We tried to call Wright, but there was no answer.
Next, we headed over to Kim Shaw’s watch party on the roof of the Broadway Hotel. No Wright.
Finally, we made our way to Shakespeare’s South where Wright supposedly planned to make an appearance.
Reporters and photographers from several local papers and TV stations waited around with bored expressions. All of them had heard the same plan from Wright, yet none of them had been able to track down the evasive incumbent.
And as the votes trickled in for Basye, the more obvious it became that Wright wasn’t going to show.
Bayse unofficially won the race with 51 percent of the vote.
