Reply #50: You're right, it's about even

[Alcibiades]

I'm not from Missouri, but used to teach political science at a university there. Anyway, It's Claire McCaskill, and she's pretty popular, from a political family and a good career in state government. She was a quality candidate, so it's not surprising she was elected.

Missouri is a majority Democratic state. I wouldn't say it's all down to the "blue dogs," either. Don't forget that the state as a whole is 11% black, St. Louis and Kansas City have many people in the educated professional demographic that has trended increasingly Democratic, and the state has good strong unions. Overall, the breakdown (in 2006) was 29% Rep., 33% Dem and 26% Ind. The problem is that some of the Dems and Independents have been voting Republican. The state should be very close either way in 2008.

Just hazarding a guess, one could say that Democrats are a marginalized minority party in Missouri, but that's only if you consider the state legislature, which is majority Republican, due to the built-in bias in favor of rural areas built into the single-member district system of representation. By any other measure, the state is, as you rightly say, pretty evenly divided.