Why Missouri's Presidential Streak Ended
Third-Party Candidates Contributed to Missouri's Mistaken Pick
Missourians are famous for picking the winning presidential candidate every four years. But their reputation was scarred in 2008. The difference in votes for Senators McCain and Obama was just one-tenth of a percent, around 3,600 votes. The independent and Libertarian candidates seem at least partially to blame for the mistaken pick.
Most major political commentators contribute the McCain win to a rural versus urban vote, race versus race, or conservative Christians versus everyone else. Chris Matthews, from Hardball, likes to refer to the two halves of the state: Missour-e, versues Missour-uh, meaning the more liberal northern portion and more conservative south, respectively.
As it turns out, these numbers may have been insignificant compared to a bigger one: the huge rise in the “other” voting category.
The average of the polling statistics, according to USA Today’s “Election Results,” shows an interesting change in statistics. The number of people voting for “others,” meaning candidates other than Obama or McCain, is significant.
In the 2004 election, around 15,184 Missouri voters picked third-party candidates. That equals a little more than ½ percent of the overall vote, and it seems like an insignificant group.
However, that number more than doubles in 2008, when more than 37,000 voters, 1.3%, picked independent or third-party candidates. Just 10% of those "other" voters would have pushed Obama over the top.
So, who did the 37,000 pick rather than the Republican or Democratic candidates?
According to Missouri election results, the independent candidate, Ralph Nader, stole most of those votes, with more than 17,000. Next was Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate with more than 11,000 votes, and most of the remaining went to Chuck Baldwin, the Constitutional candidate.
It may seem that dissatisfied Missourians didn’t like the top choices and simply picked any alternative, but this is hardly the case.
The votes for a Libertarian governor were also high at around 11,000, and almost 50,000 picked a Libertarian for the Lt. Governor spot.
Nearly 37% of the “other” vote came from just nine blue, or Democratic, counties in Missouri. Many southern towns had fewer than 200 votes apiece in the “other” category, so traditional conservatives weren’t a major part of the shift (and Nader and Barr are far from socially conservative candidates anyway).
In the 2012 presidential election, strategists may have a more important competitor to worry about than a Republican or Democrat. The “other” candidates may earn more respect in the political process, at least in the Show-Me State.
Gateway Arch, St. Louis
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