November 8, 2016 Election Day
Polls are open….
Greitens Election Day
Eric and Sheena Greitens will be voting at the St. Louis Public Library at 225 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, MO 63108 tomorrow at 10AM…
Koster Elections Day
On Election Day, Attorney General Chris Koster will visit several campaign offices around the state to speak to volunteers during the final phase of the campaign’s Get Out the Vote effort. Koster will also stop in Jefferson City to vote. Then, supporters from around the state will gather in St. Louis at the Chase Park Plaza to watch returns and celebrate…
Canvass Launch with Volunteers and members of UFCW, 9AM, Arnold, MO.
Voting in Jefferson City, Noon.
GOTV Office Stop-in, 2PM, Columbia, MO.
GOTV Office Stop-in, 4:15 PM, St. Louis, MO.
GOTV Office Stop-in, 5PM, St. Louis, MO….
Late Endorsements
Peter Kinder on Facebook: I am proud to endorse Mike Parson for Lieutenant Governor. Mike is a proven conservative, and he has worked with me to fight federal overreach, oppose Obamacare, strengthen our Second Amendment rights, and pass Right to Work through the Missouri legislature for the first time in our state's history. If he is elected, I know he will do a great job standing up for our state as Lieutenant Governor. Please join me and vote for Mike Parson.
Donald Trump on Twitter: Hey Missouri let's defeat Crooked Hillary & @koster4missouri! Koster supports Obamacare & amnesty! Vote outsider Navy SEAL @EricGreitens!
Koster Camp Response: “Eric has been at Barack Obama’s White House five times and attended the President’s Christmas party. He sat four seats from Claire McCaskill during the 2008 convention. Now he’s supporting a man who attacked a Gold Star family and belittled the disabled. It just shows he has no political backbone and will do and say whatever it takes to help himself. No one knows who Eric Greitens really is, including Eric Greitens.”
Sierra Club Against Voter ID
According to the non-committee expenditure reports, the Sierra Club spent money against Amendment 6, Voter ID. See it here. It seems a little strange. I would understand if they were spending money to influence Amendment 1, the sales tax for parks. But isn’t getting involved in Voter ID a bit of “mission creep?”
WaPo’s Kander Pre-Mortem?
Washington Post reports that sometimes running a great campaign isn’t enough. See it here
Pull Quote: Ask any Democrat — and quite a few Republicans — who has run the best Senate race, and almost universally they cite Jason Kander… In Missouri, Kander’s run the opposite campaign, trying to win over anti-establishment Trump voters. He gained national attention for his ad supporting background checks on gun purchases when the former Army captain, who served in Afghanistan, assembled an assault weapon blindfolded. But by then Kander had already turned the race into a referendum on Blunt and his family’s work as lobbyists, painting a portrait of the incumbent as the sort of Washington fixture that Trump backers despise. Democrats fell in love with Kander, 35, even as they knew he had an uphill race.
“You judge horse flesh, man. You don’t just look at the numbers, you look at the numbers, but you look and you make a judgement,” [Joe] Biden said in an August interview, sizing up Kander. “Whoa, this horse can run. This guy can run, this guy’s a candidate.”
Blunt’s campaign has been ridiculed in private by senior Republicans for not recognizing the threat and by mid-October they whispered about his candidacy the way someone speaks of a dying relative.
But in the last 10 days, particularly after FBI Director James Comey announced a further review of new emails from Clinton’s secretary of state tenure (though that is now over), Missouri reverted to its partisan form. Day after day, more Republicans came home to support Trump and, with him, also Blunt.
Now, Blunt is in a coin-toss race that few strategists in Washington, in either party, believe that he deserves to win.
Senate Battleground Price Tags
33 entries in the MOScout Election Pick’em Contest and not one person picked Randy Jotte in an upset over Sen. Scott Sifton in Senate 1.
Republican have put money into the race - $82K in supporting expenditures from the MO Republican Party, $95K in supporting expenditures from the Republican’s Senate Campaign Committee, and about $650K in direct contributions from their campaign committee and leadership. Meanwhile Sifton received about $125K in supporting expenditures from the Democratic Party.
In Senate 19, there were some picks for Rep. Caleb Rowden, but the majority MOScouters are picking Rep. Stephen Webber to prevail. Republican senators and their campaign committees have contributed $1.7M to Rowden’s campaign this cycle. They’ll be watching tonight to see if their investment pays off.
Bits
Bob Priddy says the reason we haven’t seen any opposition to the campaign finance contribution limits is because big money knows they’ll be able to find loopholes. See it here.
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver does a take on the Night Before Christmas. See it here.
Marie Ceselski’s 7th Ward Independent Democrats endorses Tishaura Jones for St. Louis City Mayor…. The 2017 Mayor’s race is the most important local candidate election of our lifetime and we are moved to act now and wait no longer. The City of St. Louis needs leadership keen on solving problems instead of making excuses. We need a mayor who is not a part of the Rex Sinquefield wing of the Democratic Party. We want a mayor who has not made a career out of giving away corporate welfare. We must, absolutely must, have a mayor who brings transparency to local government. 7th Ward Independent Democrats endorse Tishaura Jones for Mayor. See it here.
eMailbag: on Running as a Slate
Dem #1: Democrats created the idea of coordinated campaigns to rally your base vote. Republicans have stolen it. Only example you need is look at the schedules of the two parties.
Dem #2: I noticed that while the Republicans are appearing together throughout the state Koster is appearing by himself except for one time with Kander. That is Nixonesque, and partially how we got in this mess.
eMailbag: on Nixon Not Campaigning for Dems
Lobbyist #1: Nixon's selfishness and the damage it did to the Dem party will be one of his legacies…
Lobbyist #2: Does your reader really think Jay Nixon could help anyone? I don't know what his approval rating is exactly, but I doubt he would be able to help Kander, Koster or the rest of the ticket fire anyone up for GOTV.
Lobbyists Registrations
Richard Brownlee III deleted Empire District Electric Company.
$5K+ Contributions
Friends of Caleb Rowden - $200,000 from Committee to Elect Ron Richard.
Schmitt for Missouri - $40,000 from Sean Moore.
Association of MO Electrical Cooperative PAC - $39,400 from Missourians for Affordable Energy.
Missouri Senate Campaign Committee - $25,000 from Citizens for Schatz.
Missouri Senate Campaign Committee - $15,000 from Cerner Corporation.
Missouri Senate Campaign Committee - $15,000 from Committee to Elect Ron Richard.
Missouri Senate Campaign Committee - $12,500 from Drury Development Corporation.
Hawley for Missouri - $10,000 from William Mumma.
Senior Count Campaign Committee - $10,000 from BJC Healthcare.
Association of MO Electric Cooperatives PAC - $10,000 from KAMO Power.
Progress KC - $10,000 from Friends of the Zoo.
UAW Region 5 Midwest States Political Action Committee - $6,000 from UAW Region5 Exchange Account.
Koster for Misosuri - $5,326 from Working America Coalition AFL-CIO.
Greitens for Missouri - $5,001 from Jim Matush.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to former speaker Catherine Hanaway, former Reps. Tony George and Steve Webb, BJC’s Ellie Glenn, and Ed Bushmeyer.