ST. LOUIS–Voters across the country and on both sides of the Mississippi River in the St. Louis region will head to the polls Tuesday in midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, state legislative bodies, Governors' mansions, and scores of other races. Here’s a look at what to watch out for as election day unfolds.
Election law changes
A new Missouri law that requires voters to have a valid Missouri or federal government photo ID in order to vote with a regular ballot gets its first statewide test Nov. 8. The law survived a circuit court challenge from opponents who said it had the potential to disenfranchise voters, but a Cole County judge disagreed. Voters who don’t have a valid ID will use a provisional ballot, which will then have its signature matched to one already on file. Provisional ballots will be counted separately but Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft told Spectrum News recently he doesn’t expect the number of provisional ballots will impact the “vast majority” of contests.
Democrats who opposed the photo ID provision did get a concession in the bill, with a no-excuse absentee voting period which has seen steady turnout since it began last week. Election officials have said historically, early voting elsewhere hasn’t necessarily raised turnout and instead has just spread it out.
In Illinois, during the pandemic in 2020, two-thirds of voters voted either by mail or early, but a third of voters already had made the switch away from in-person election-day voting in the two previous elections.
U.S. Senate-Missouri
Republican State Attorney General Eric Schmitt has maintained a double-digit lead over Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine for nearly the entirety of the general election campaign, according to polls. Other candidates include Libertarian Jonathan Dine and the Constitution Party’s Paul Venable.
The race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt has largely played out on social media and in campaign ads. The two major party candidates failed to agree to a joint debate and only shared the same venue briefly when both appeared at the Governor’s Ham Breakfast at the Missouri State Fair in August.
Promising support for a return to former President Trump's “America First” agenda, Schmitt bested a primary field that included former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler and U.S. Rep. Billy Long, among others. A Greitens win would have likely forced a major financial investment for national GOP interests to keep what is widely believed to be a safe Republican seat.
Busch Valentine, a nurse and heir to the Anheuser Busch beer fortune, has self-financed her campaign to the tune of roughly $16 million. A newcomer to running for political office, Busch Valentine has promised a more moderate approach, while also championing women’s reproductive rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Busch Valentine has struggled to energize her party's base, despite defeating Lucas Kunce in the primary.
Her campaign has been the more public one in terms of campaigning. Schmitt has largely spoken only to conservative media outlets and a Monday barnstorming schedule taking him around the state will be his first set of in-person campaign events in recent memory.
A Schmitt victory would mean Gov. Mike Parson would need to appoint a replacement for the Attorney General’s post. Parson appointed Schmitt, then State Treasurer, to succeed Josh Hawley after Hawley defeated Claire McCaskill for the state’s other U.S. Senate seat.
Parson could potentially need to appoint a new State Treasurer for a second time, if Scott Fitzpatrick, who replaced Schmitt in 2018, succeeds in the race for State Auditor. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, is opposed by Democrat Alan Green and Libertarian John Hartwig, Jr.
Amendment 3
Missouri voters will be asked if recreational marijuana should be legalized in the state, while also providing for the expungement of criminal records and a pathway for a release from prison and parole in certain cases. The question has divided organizations and political parties, and has created unique alliances in the state. The state NAACP is urging a no vote, along with Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, a Democrat. Local NAACP chapters in the St. Louis area are endorsing it, along with Bush Valentine, as are St. Louis Aldermanic Board President candidates Jack Coatar and Megan Green. The state Democratic party is neither advocating for or against it.
Critics include many who have said they support the idea of legalization, but don’t believe the process laid out will result in a fair distribution of licenses, in part because current holders of medical marijuana licenses will have the chance to transfer into the recreational system. New licenses will be distributed via a lottery.
Parson has said he’s concerned people will falsely think passage means the public will have the right to grow their own marijuana.
If approved, backers say the six percent retail sales tax will create at least $53 million annually in state and local revenues to cover expungement costs, with the remainder going to veterans’ services, drug addiction treatment and the public defender system.
Congressional races
The region’s incumbents are widely favored to win re-election to Congress in the first general election with new boundaries formed following the 2020 Census. Illinois Democrats used the process to force Rodney Davis into a member-member primary with Mary Miller for the 15th district race. Miller had the backing of former President Donald Trump and won handily in June and is widely expected to defeat Quincy Democrat Paul Lange.
Democrats created a new 13th District covering portions of the Metro East that should be favorable for Nikki Budzkinski, a former Biden and Pritzker administration official running against Republican Regan Deering, a wealthy small business owner connected to the family that ran Archer Daniels Midland. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled its money from the race earlier this fall, citing Budzkinski’s own fundraising strength, as the party tries to hold onto control in the House.
If Republicans retake control, the notion of a “wave” could be reinforced if Deering were to come out on top.
In Missouri, lawmakers in the GOP-controlled state legislature ultimately agreed to a map that is expected to yield a 6-2 ideological split for the delegation, favoring Republicans, but it will be interesting to see how the results pan out in the state’s first and second congressional districts in the St. Louis area. The new first district includes all of the city of St. Louis, long a Democratic stronghold, along with more of St. Louis County than it had previously. The second district has grown more rural, stretching from West St. Louis County to parts of Franklin and Warren County.
Illinois Governor
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association were criticized for “meddling” in the GOP primary for Governor by running ad campaigns that portrayed State Sen. Darren Bailey as “too conservative”. Bailey won the June primary, along with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Pritzker has used that endorsement and others to say Bailey “shouldn’t be anywhere near” the Governor’s office.
The Bailey campaign has hammered Pritzker on crime, as well as for how the SAFE-T Act, a criminal justice reform bill Pritzker signed, will impact the state when it becomes law January 1.
Pritzker said the criminal justice system Bailey supports is one that "allows murderers and rapists and domestic abusers to buy their way out of jail.” Pritzker made headlines in June with a trip to New Hampshire that stoked speculation of presidential ambitions, potentially as early as 2024. That talk has largely abated in public, although Pritzker did refuse to answer Bailey’s pledge to commit to a full four-year term as Governor if elected.
State legislatures
Missouri Republicans currently hold a supermajority in both chambers, while Democrats control both bodies in Illinois. Bailey, in deflecting questions about how his pro-life stance on abortion would impact Illinois law, which allows for abortion, has argued that the likely makeup of the state legislature would make it impossible to change the law if he tried.
In Missouri, Democrats have admitted their focus is on getting GOP control below the supermajority threshold, targeting a handful of House seats. In the State Senate, the only race viewed as competitive is the District 24 contest between Olivette Democratic State Rep. Tracy McCreery and Dr. George Hruza, a St. Louis County dermatologist. The two are trying to succeed State Sen. Jill Schupp, a Creve Coeur democrat who was term-limited.
St. Louis County Executive
One of the more bizarre election cycles in recent memory will come to a close when voters decide the race for St. Louis County Executive, between incumbent Sam Page, a Democrat, Republican Mark Mantovani, and the Green Party’s Randall Holmes.
Page is running for his first full four-year term after defeating Mantovani in the Democratic primary in 2020 to fill out the remainder of the term left by Steve Stenger’s resignation in 2019. Mantovani flipped to the Republican party in September after the winner of the GOP primary, Katherine Pinner, quit the race for good after flirting with the idea.
Republicans, who are outnumbered in St. Louis County, have embraced Mantovani’s candidacy, thirsty to win back the County Executive’s office for the first time in an election since the late 1980s.
President, St. Louis Board of Aldermen
For the second time in less than two months, Jack Coatar and Megan Green will be competing on the same ballot in the race for President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Green won a September primary with both current members of the Board of Aldermen assured of advancing to the November special election.
Voters will decide between Green, who was endorsed by Mayor Tishaura Jones and U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and is running on a progressive platform including equitable development, expanded access to affordable housing and help for the unhoused.
Coatar, who has the backing of former Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis License Collector Mavis Thompson, has put emphasis on solving the city’s service problems, from trash collection to 911 and has promised increased police funding.
Tuesday’s winner will serve the remainder of the four year term, formerly won by Lewis Reed, which expires in the spring. Reed resigned after his federal indictment on bribery charges. Alderman Joe Vollmer is currently Acting President and has said he intends to seek his ward seat in the spring election.