At The State And Local Level, Pike County, Missouri Is "One Party, Take It Or Leave It"
Pike County Is One Example Of How Gerrymandering Is Destroying Competitive Elections And Political Diversity.
Three years ago, give or take, I moved from St. Louis to a small town located in Pike County, Missouri. I mostly love the life here. The people are kind and welcoming. The lack of traffic jams and crime is a real plus. The pace of life is slower. Yes, there are only a couple of regularly open restaurants located in town, the drive for Pizza Hut is about 30 miles, round trip, and the grocery store doesn’t have as wide of a selection as one finds in urban stores, among other things, but this small town of 2,300 and the surrounding area has a lot going for it and I am very glad I made the move. Absolutely no regrets.
However, one thing does concern me.
There is a serious lack of political diversity in Pike County, Missouri. Especially at the state and local level.
There is one party, the Republican Party. Take it or leave it.
Pike County is a shining example of what has happened in formerly Democratic Party strongholds in rural America. Pike County, and other counties in the northeast area of the state, had a long tradition of electing Democrats to office. Democrat Champ Clark, a former Speaker of the House, is revered here, his name attached to all sorts of bridges, buildings, and streets. Former Representative and federal judge William Hungate (D-9), he of Watergate fame, is from this part of the state. So is former Rep. Harold Volkmer (D-9 and Hungate’s successor).
This (gerrymandering) isn’t healthy for democracy and only reinforces the perception, and some would argue the reality, that the United States is now two politically divided countries, the liberal, contemporary values (Democratic Party) United States and the conservative, traditional values (Republican Party) United States.
These counties and small towns that once had a strong Democratic Party identity have now become overwhelmingly aligned with the Republican Party, so much so that Democrats rarely run for state and local offices. There are many reasons for this and that is cannon fodder for another time, but the reality is that the lack of two party competition in these state and local races usually means that the Republican primary (August 2, 2022) becomes, in fact, the de facto general election.
This PDF is the Pike County sample ballot for the August 2nd primary.
For federal office (Senate and House), Democratic and Republican voters have a large list of candidates to choose from. The Senate primary is being hotly contested on both sides. The House race has a number of candidates in both primaries, but the Republican primary will in essence be the general election as the congressional seat has been a safe Republican seat since the mid 2000s. Even so, this level of competition is good for democracy in that the large number of candidates on both sides offers a healthy diversity in terms of personal style, ideas, and approaches to governing.
As one moves down the ballot where the state and local races are contested, the lack of party competition is glaring. In the state senate and state representative races, there is no partisan competition between Republicans and Democrats because Democrats are not running primaries for these offices. The same is true for county and municipal elections. Democrats are pleading “no mas” in these contests.
The Democratic Party in Pike County, Missouri, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists as a viable political entity. Even though there is a Pike County Democratic Club (I was at the last meeting and 10 people, including two congressional candidates who were at the club sponsored candidate forum, were in attendance) and there is a county Democratic Central Committee, the party and the voters who “support” it have gone the way of the dinosaurs (except at the national level).
Take it or leave it, Pike County, Missouri is a one party town.
The voters of Pike County, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, will be voting in a personal popularity contest. It will be like voting for high school Homecoming King.
The state senate race is a prime example of what happens when political competition evaporates. Instead of candidates who offer ideas that create clear distinctions between themselves, the election is reduced to a popularity contest between generally homogeneous candidates offering the same nebulous and mind numbing talking points on the same issues.
Mike Carter (Welcome to Trump Country), Travis Fitzwater, and Bryan Spencer are the three major candidates in the hotly contested race. They all seem to be qualified candidates in terms of education and political experience. All three are “successful” in their own way (lawyers, judges, previous office holders, educators, business owners) and reflect the “values” that define the district. In reality, there isn’t much that distinguishes one from the other.
This lack of differences between the candidates is reflected in their campaigns.
According to their campaign literature and websites, all three are running on almost identical platforms, using very subtle distinctions on the issues to make themselves stand out in the crowd. All three advocate protecting the 2nd Amendment (Carter lists, by caliber, the different weapons he owns and Fitzwater touts his work on the Missouri 2nd Amendment Preservation Act which “stops the Biden Administration from trampling states’ rights and taking away our guns.”), protecting the unborn (Spencer posts, in all caps with logo, the endorsement of his candidacy by the Missouri Right to Life PAC and Fitzwater emphasizes his work in stopping funding for Planned Parenthood and closing abortion clinics.), deregulation and lower taxes, and protecting parental rights. (Spencer publicly “up front” in stating that he is the candidate who will “protect our children from gender grooming, men in women’s sports, and CRT.”)
The point of all of this is that voters in Pike County aren’t , in these very important state and local races, going to have a choice based on significantly different political approaches designed to address the challenges facing the district. There are no Democrats on the ballot so there will be little or no debate concerning governing, policy, economic development, and taxing and spending. Rather, debate will focus on nuance and subtle differences in approach.
Down ballot, the voters of Pike County are going to be voting for candidates who pretty much look alike, act alike and most times, talk alike.
The voters of Pike County, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will be voting in a personal popularity contest. It will be like voting for high school Homecoming King.
Pike County, Missouri is just one example of the nationwide decline in competitive elections. Gerrymandering by both Democrats and Republicans has created a political map characterized by protected seats and noncompetitive elections (Missouri was one of the last states to draw approved federal and state office district maps and this race is being contested in the newly redrawn 10th State Senate District).
This isn’t healthy for democracy and only reinforces the perception, and some would argue the reality, that the United States is now two politically divided countries, the liberal, contemporary values (Democratic Party) United States and the conservative, traditional values (Republican Party) United States.
Gerrymandering has also created a situation where the vast majority of seats at the are considered ‘safe” seats in terms of party control, again, seats where elections are uncontested (especially seats held by protected incumbents) or noncompetitive.
Down ballot, the voters of Pike County are going to be voting for candidates who pretty much look alike, act alike, and most times, talk alike.
At the federal level, this non competitiveness is a huge problem. Office holders become entrenched career politicians who become insensitive to the needs of the voters and doing the people’s business and more concerned about holding on to personal political power and staying in Washington, D.C. rather that actually having to live in their districts and live with people that they, in reality, look down upon.
At the state level, this political careerism has been somewhat mitigated by term limits. Because there is a cap on the number of years a person can serve, there is somewhat of a guarantee that there will be churn and that new legislators, with new ideas and approaches, will be elected to office.
Term limits do not, however, mitigate the negative impact of gerrymandering and non competitiveness. In most states, elected officials draw district maps (done every ten years after the census) and the drawing of the maps becomes an exercise in political protectionism. Missouri’s maps were delayed because of a very small group of Republican state senators who wanted to grant Democrats only one congressional district rather than the two that were originally drawn. While the Democrats ultimately received two districts, the maps were heavily gerrymandered in order to protect Republican incumbents and to create a new district in the western part of the state (currently Democratic) that will be very difficult for Democrats to hold in 2022.
This is not an exercise of piling on Republicans and blaming them for the creation of non competitive races. Pike County, Missouri is just one example of the political reality that exists throughout the country. Democrats are guilty of practicing the same sort of gerrymandering in states where they control the mapping process. California, New York, and other Democratic states, as well as the “purple” states that have more partisan balance between Republicans and Democrats, went through similar political struggles to draw maps 2022.
Gerrymandering is nothing new in our political process, but in its current form, it is part of the cancer that is destroying democracy in the United States. By creating “safe” seats and the non competitive elections that result, gerrymandering fosters greater division and stifles partisan political diversity. The result is the stifling of debate and dissent. It creates Pike County, Missouri all across the country, where elections become dominated by one party or the other.
It creates elections for Homecoming King.