Margaret BauerOf the 11 states holding elections for governor this November, Missouri’s race is shaping up to be one of the closest. Republican Matt Blunt, the current secretary of state, is running against Democrat and State Auditor Claire McCaskill, who defeated incumbent Governor Bob Holden in the Democratic primaries last month.
A poll conducted for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV by Maryland-based Research 2000 last week showed 46 percent of likely voters favoring Blunt and 45 percent favoring McCaskill, with nine percent of voters undecided.
Blunt’s one-point lead in the poll falls within the 3.5 percent sampling margin of error of the survey, meaning that the race currently stands in a statistical dead heat.
The most important issues in the election, as listed by the 801 likely voters surveyed, were health care, education, security, taxes and the economy. While most respondents listed health care as the issue more important than any other, many also indicated that they valued one of the other issues listed above instead, showing that Missouri voters currently consider a number of issues to be significant.
The poll also showed that McCaskill has an edge over Blunt in the state’s urban centers around St. Louis and Kansas City, while Blunt fared better than McCaskill in central and southern Missouri.
Historically, the two major urban centers at the edges of the state have been comfortably Democratic, while the area in between has supported the GOP. This trend is often noted by political analysts who describe the relatively even balance of Democratic and Republican voters in Missouri as a mirror of the country at large, and it appears to be holding in this year’s gubernatorial race.
Holden’s Woes
Current Missouri governor Bob Holden was the first incumbent to be defeated in a primary election in more than a decade, as McCaskill edged him out last month with 52 percent of the vote to Holden’s 45 percent. Holden, whose office had been in political turmoil from the beginning of his term, had been dubbed “one-term Bob” by political opponents.
Holden began his term as governor with an extravagant $1 million inaugural ball, an expense he had trouble explaining after he was later forced to make a number of unpopular budget cuts as the Missouri economy weakened.
For the first time in 50 years, Republicans took control of the Missouri state Senate during Holden’s term, crippling his ability to effect policy changes. Ensuing battles with senate Republicans have been particularly fierce-Holden’s vetoes have been overridden three times, which is more veto overrides than Missouri had seen in the past 150 years.
Holden had faced criticism for failing to follow through on campaign promises, a jibe he has responded to by noting the difficult economic and political conditions he faced while in office. He has also maintained that his opponents in the Senate have failed to negotiate with him.
Guarantee of new governor indicates potential policy changes
With the incumbent out of the race and a new governor being elected on Nov. 2, Missourians can count on a change of approach from their state’s highest office. Although candidate McCaskill is also a Democrat, she has indicated that her political agenda will differ from Holden’s. Blunt, as a Republican, presents yet a different political platform.
During the primaries, McCaskill campaigned on a promise of accountability, painting Holden’s attempts to explain his administration’s problems as shirking responsibility. As state auditor, McCaskill’s job was to find and eliminate wasteful bureaucratic spending. Looking to capitalize on her background as state auditor, McCaskill has extended this pledge into her current campaign.
Both Blunt and McCaskill have promised to take different approaches than Holden has on the subject of medical malpractice litigation reform. Republicans in the state Senate have pushed for laws limiting the amount of money that can be awarded in malpractice litigation, but Holden has fought them on the issue and vetoed reform legislation on two occasions. The Senate failed to override his veto both times, leaving the issue a matter of heated contention.
Blunt has also indicated that, if elected, he would sign legislation similar to that vetoed by Holden, which would limit damages and restrict the plaintiff’s choice of venue. As the law currently reads, claimants may file suit in any of a number of jurisdictions, and some prosecutors “shop” for the one in which they expect to find the most sympathetic jury.
Both Blunt and McCaskill also support a filtering system that would reduce the number of frivolous claims, a burden that bogs down the courts and causes doctors’ malpractice insurance rates to rise.