WASHINGTON — Missouri Democrats entered the Donald Trump era occupying the governor's office and a U.S. Senate seat.
They will exit holding neither, and without a clear path back to relevance in statewide elections.
The party suffered devastating defeats in 2016, 2018 and 2020. And there's little expectation among state Democratic leaders that the situation will improve by 2022, when Republican Sen. Roy Blunt is up for reelection. The party holding the White House — as Democrats will with President-elect Joe Biden — traditionally loses ground in midterm contests.
Missouri voters don't register with a party and for years the state was known for tight races and ticket splitting. The parties frequently traded statewide offices and it was until recently seen as a swing state for presidential campaigns.
But as its electorate has grown older and more conservative, Missouri has transitioned into a blanket of deep red, with a few blue spots in Kansas City, St. Louis and Columbia.
"We are not one cycle away. This is what you do for the next 10 years," said Abe Rakov, a longtime aide of former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, who challenged Blunt in 2016.
"No. 1 reason, I think, it keeps getting worse is people think it's one cycle away and it's not. It's multiple cycles away and it takes some rebuilding," Rakov said. "In Missouri, we have to be willing to commit to that."
Trump won Missouri in 2016 by 19 points and helped lift Blunt to a 3-point victory over Kander as Republicans swept statewide elections, including the race for governor.
Kander won't be seeking a rematch with Blunt in 2022, Rakov confirmed. He will support the party's eventual nominee.
Blunt's spokeswoman confirmed the senator plans to seek a third term in 2022, but she declined to comment on what this year's election results mean for his race.
This year, Trump again won the state by double digits, but there weren't any close races where Republicans needed the president to carry them over the finish line. Every statewide Republican outperformed him.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson defeated state Auditor Nicole Galloway, the only Democrat in statewide office, by more than 16 points, a 10-point jump over GOP predecessor Eric Greitens in his 2016 defeat of Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster. Parson enters his full term with a strong mandate and GOP super majorities in the legislature.
After the 2016 losses and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill's 2018 defeat, Missouri Democrats entered the 2020 cycle with two goals: Increase urban turnout and win back a portion of the rural vote.
They failed at both.
These were still the correct goals to set, said Lauren Gepford, the state party's executive director who will step down in December. There's just no easy answer to why the party came up short on both.
"We performed worse this year in every congressional district than we did in 2018 and 2018 wasn't a great year for us. I think Claire McCaskill would say we need to hone back (in) on economic issues," Gepford said.
Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver won his ninth term in the Missouri 5th Congressional District, which includes Kansas City's urban core, by 20 points. Newcomer Cori Bush flattened her GOP opponent in St. Louis' 1st Congressional District by 50 points.
But the raw vote totals in these Democratic strongholds weren't enough to make a dent in Republican statewide dominance. Bush's district had the lowest total turnout in the state.
And Cleaver's 204,631 votes in his rout of Republican Ryan Derks were only about 3,000 more than Democrat Jill Schupp received in her 6-point loss to Republican Rep. Ann Wagner in the St. Louis suburbs, where turnout was highest.
Jean Evans, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said the GOP focused its resources on the Missouri 2nd District because Wagner's suburban district would be the most competitive battleground in the presidential race.
This helped Parson's statewide totals.
"We knew that's where the battle was ... and we knew that if we could do well it would drive up our margins in the rest of the state," Evans said.
Evans said tying Schupp and Galloway to Bush, a progressive activist who supports defunding police departments to steer resources to other social services, was an effective strategy in the affluent suburbs.
"We were trying to tie Galloway to her donors and just didn't seem to be getting too much traction with that. But then when Cori Bush had been saying 'Defund the police' all along and then she said 'Defund the Pentagon' the same day Galloway sent out a picture of her with Bush ... it just kind of wrote the ad," Evans said.
She said that Bush's comments about the Pentagon were particularly damaging in St. Louis County, home to a Boeing plant that relies on defense spending.
Bush, in Washington attending new member orientation this past week, said in a statement that the Missouri GOP's messaging "was more like a bullhorn of racism than a dog-whistle." She criticized Republicans for focusing on Black Lives Matter activists instead of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I ran a campaign deeply rooted in radical love for my community. I ran to make sure that no matter where you live, what you look like, who you love, or what you've been through, you can live a decent life. I intend to govern that way as well," Bush said.
In addition to the barrage of attack ads against Galloway, Republicans won the ground game in the St. Louis suburbs and statewide as Democrats chose to hold off on their usual canvassing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Evans said in 2018 every door she knocked on in the St. Louis area had already been visited by McCaskill's campaign. This year there were no signs of the Democrats.
Geoff Gerling, executive director of the Jackson County Democratic Committee, said the party had to scrap its voter registration push in the Kansas City area out of safety concerns.
"We're more effective as a party, especially for our middle and down ballot races, when we can have that contact," Gerling said.
Gerling said the party also underestimated the backlash it would face from voters who associated COVID-19-related restrictions with Democrats.
Jackson County Democrats didn't even prevail in House District 34 in the Kansas City suburbs despite the well-publicized sexual abuse allegations made by Republican Rick Roeber's adult children. Roeber denies the allegations.
Gerling has long pushed for the party to focus on turning out urban areas.
Galloway tried that with multiple trips to Kansas City and St. Louis, but the cities continued to lag the rest of the state. Republicans said Galloway should have focused more on competing in rural areas like past statewide Democratic candidates.
"I think from a strategic standpoint, the first big error I see from Galloway is that she didn't make an effort with rural voters," said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the pro-Parson Uniting Missouri PAC and a former staffer of GOP Sen. Josh Hawley.
"I think she went to the 'Bootheel' once," Berg said. "She went to Kansas City ten times. And as you know, Kansas City does not turn out. She was hoping for a miracle. It didn't work out for her."
Missouri's transition from a swing state to a deep red state has coincided with the passage of several progressive ballot initiatives. In 2018, Missouri voters repealed the "right to work" law that restricts labor unions and passed medical marijuana. This August, they passed Medicaid expansion.
"We see that there's a disconnect between Missourians supporting Democratic policies and not supporting Democratic candidates. And that's the biggest problem," said state Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Clay County Democrat who flipped a Northland district in 2018.
Arthur said the party needs to increase its outreach in exurban areas and focus on broad economic themes that will resonate with voters across racial and geographic lines.
"As a senator in the super minority, I often rely on the serenity prayer, which is God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can't change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference," Arthur said. "There are things we can't change like demographic trends and cable news... but there are things Missouri Democrats can do better."
Rakov said the party will have to be rebuilt first on a local level before it can be competitive in statewide races.
"I just think there has to be a level of long-term investment. That doesn't just mean money. That means time and energy," he said. "The reason Jason did so well and why before that Gov. Nixon and Sen. McCaskill did so well is they put time and effort into building their personal brand with activists in every corner of the state, which helped build party infrastructure."
There won't be any statewide figures readily available to challenge Blunt in 2022. Galloway, whose 2018 victory in the auditor race made her the likely challenger to Parson, won't have the same high stock after a double digit defeat.
And rising progressive stars, such as Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, are unlikely to risk a statewide run against a GOP incumbent. After recent elections, Missouri won't be seen as the best investment by the national party in 2022.
"I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think there's going to be any national resources in that race. And that's going to make it tough to get a high quality candidate to run," Gepford said.
"Quite frankly, I think we'll be happy to have anybody run in 2022."
