Missouri

Missouri had no Senate race and no governor’s race, so the widest measure of the state is its vote for the U.S. House, all eight districts added together. Republicans won it by 0.7 points. In 2024 they had won it by 20.0, and Donald Trump had carried the state by 18.4. One seat changed hands: in the Second District, Democrat Fred Wellman beat Republican Ann Wagner, a seven-term incumbent, by 4.9 points in a district Trump had carried by 7.8. Wellman won St. Louis County by 14 points and cut Wagner’s lead in St. Charles County from roughly 16,000 votes in 2024 to about 4,000.¹ The delegation went from six Republicans and two Democrats to five and three.

Compared with the 2024 presidential vote in the same districts, the House vote moved 17.4 points toward the Democrats, from R+18.2 to R+0.7. Democratic candidates drew 84 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won here, Republicans 59 for every 100 of Trump’s. The House vote came to 2,092,534, 102% of the 2022 total and 70% of the 2024 presidential vote.

Missouri’s part of the Kansas City area moved furthest, 19.1 points, from D+0.9 to D+20.0. The St. Louis area, which casts 36% of the vote, went from D+5.3 to D+19.7. The Springfield area and the smaller metro areas stayed Republican but by far less, at R+19.1 and R+13.8. The small towns and rural counties moved least, 13.2 points, and still voted Republican by 44.8.

Clay County, in the Kansas City area, is the larger of the two counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Democratic House candidates this year. It went from R+5.6 to D+14.4 on 96,290 votes. Jefferson County, in the St. Louis area, moved 20.8 points, from R+36.3 to R+15.5. A bigger county came close to changing sides: St. Charles County, also in the St. Louis area, went from R+16.8 to R+1.2 on 164,075 votes.

Republicans keep both chambers and, with a governor’s office that was not on the ballot, control of state government.² What they lost is the two-thirds margin in both chambers, which they had held since 2012. They now have 95 of 163 House seats, after a Democratic gain of 16, and 22 of 34 Senate seats, after a gain of two; an override takes two-thirds of the elected members of each house.^{2, 3, 4} The Missouri Independent reported that 95 is the party’s lowest House total since 2008, and that House Republicans can no longer override a veto or pass a bill that takes effect immediately without Democratic votes.⁵ In the Senate, Rep. Betsy Fogle won a Springfield-based district Republicans had held for more than 80 years, and Rep. Keri Ingle defeated House Speaker Jon Patterson in eastern Jackson County.¹

Republicans chose Alex Riley of Springfield as House speaker, Jason Bean as Senate president pro tem and Nick Schroer as Senate majority leader; Democrats chose Stephen Webber to lead in the Senate, and Ashley Aune leads House Democrats. “We’re not a super minority anymore,” Webber said.^{6, 7} The Missouri Independent reported that every major policy initiative Republicans put before voters since Gov. Mike Kehoe took office has been defeated.⁵

The legislature draws congressional districts by law, and such a law is subject to referendum. State House and Senate districts are drawn by two bipartisan citizens commissions whose members the governor appoints from lists the two major parties submit.^{7, 8, 9, 10} Secretary of State Denny Hoskins was not on the ballot; the office is elected at presidential elections.^{11, 12}

A constitutional amendment in Missouri takes effect if a majority of the votes cast on it are in favor.¹³ Voters rejected Amendment 3, placed on the ballot by the legislature, which would have banned most abortions, undoing the 2024 initiative, and written a ban on gender-affirming care for minors into the constitution; it drew 47.8% yes in our count.¹⁴ They rejected Proposition A, which asked whether to use the congressional map drawn in a 2025 special session to make the Kansas City-area 5th District a Republican seat, with 40.5% yes; a referendum petition had kept that map from taking effect, and this year’s election used the 2022 map.¹⁵

Amendment 6, which requires an 80% vote in both chambers for the legislature to change laws passed by initiative and bars it from re-enacting policies voters rejected by referendum, passed with 57.8%.^{11, 16} Amendment 8, which requires every county to elect a sheriff every four years, with exemptions in the St. Louis area, and lets only the attorney general move to remove one, passed with 53.1%. Amendment 7, which would have created a public endowment called the Show-Me Prosperity Fund without putting money in it, failed with 40.5% yes.^{15, 17} The News Tribune’s table gives somewhat different shares, but the same outcomes.¹⁷

Voters retained Paul C. Wilson on the Missouri Supreme Court with 62.8% yes, in the News Tribune’s table of unofficial results.¹⁸ In St. Louis County, Democrat Jake Zimmerman defeated Republican Councilman Dennis Hancock for county executive, 65% to 33%, and Democrats widened their majority on the county council. Melissa Price Smith, the Democrat appointed prosecutor after Wesley Bell resigned to take his seat in Congress, won a full term with 83% of the vote over a Libertarian.¹⁹ In Jackson County, Democrat Stacy Lake defeated Republican Alan Rohlfing for county executive.²⁰

Republicans kept five of their six U.S. House seats. The narrowest was the Third District, which Bob Onder won by 8.5 points; Trump had carried it by 26.4. Republican House candidates carried 109 of the 115 counties, and Republican Scott Fitzpatrick won the state auditor’s race with 50.2% to Democrat Quentin Wilson’s 47.2% in the News Tribune’s unofficial table.¹⁸ The Missouri Independent reported that in the legislature Democrats mainly won seats in suburbs next to districts they already held. Seventeen House Republicans won by fewer than 10 percentage points, and the new majority leader, Darin Chappell, was re-elected in Greene County with 70%, 15 points narrower than in 2024.^{5, 6}

Sen. Eric Schmitt’s seat is on the 2028 ballot, in a state Trump carried by 18.4 points and whose House vote this year was R+0.7. The governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general are elected at presidential elections, so all five offices will be on the 2028 ballot as well, and every seat in the 163-member House is elected again.^{9, 12} The incoming Senate president pro tem, Jason Bean, said redistricting is probably at the bottom of his caucus’s list, and St. Louis Public Radio reported that a congressional map redrawn without a court order could again be blocked by a referendum petition before the 2028 elections.⁷