This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 13, 2012 - A familiar adage states that victory has a thousand authors but no one will claim defeat. The results from the Aug. 7 primary stir a number of questions and data can provide only partial explanations.
Looking at the city of St. Louis, we are hampered by recent redistricting. The wards differ from those in previous elections and demographics of these new wards are not easily available. Nonetheless, a number of points can be made that could be further analyzed later.
Alderman Fred Wessels attributed his loss in the treasurer’s race to south-siders who chose a Republican ballot because of the heated Senate contest on the GOP side. Yet, we find that 5,148 St. Louisans voted in that Republican race. In 2010, 4,945 voted in the Republican senatorial primary, only a 203-vote difference.
A second reason offered by the alderman carries greater weight. The challenge faced by Rep. Lacy Clay from Rep. Russ Carnahan did increase black turnout in the city. Clay made a diligent effort to get out the vote. If he lost, the city would not have a black representative in the U.S. House for the first time since 1969.
The Clay name resonates for its political and civil rights ties. Lacy Clay has been quite active in challenging the voter identification laws that would restrict the political participation of the elderly and the poor.
The Clay organization has been noted for its mobilizations. Rep. Clay’s father marshaled the troops in 1982 against Allan Mueller; and Pearlie Evans, Clay’s major domo, stirred up strong support for Freeman Bosley Jr. and Virvus Jones in 1993 and for Darlene Green in 1996. The elder Clay and Ms. Evans may have retired but the organization has a fine-tuned institutional memory.
The following figures shed light on the effect this year although the comparison is not exact because of redistricting. Election returns show the turnout for the congressional vote in the city in the Democratic primary in 2010 and 2012.
In 2010, Clay received 88.47 percent of the city vote in the first district and Carnahan received 82.12 percent in the city section of the 3rd district.
Of course, all of this must be viewed with the knowledge that no section of the city is populated by only one race. Nonetheless, these figures point to significantly greater black participation in 2012.
When Russ Carnahan decided to challenge Lacy Clay this year in the 1st Congressional District, he began what some figured would be a quixotic quest. These pundits were astute judges of the St. Louis electorate. But, the enhanced black turnout may well have affected other races as well.
The 5th state senate race and the race for state representative in the 84th district both featured two black candidates and one white. It is possible for the black candidates to split the black vote and the white to gain the nod. That scenario would not account for the enhanced turnout, which could have aided the black victor in these races. Both districts are integrated. In retrospect, we could say that Carnahan’s candidacy altered the playing field in races outside his own.
And, as Fred Wessels hypothesized, turnout did affect the treasurer’s race. But it was not likely because of those who voted in the Republican contests. The treasurer’s race featured two black and two white candidates, all of whom were credible. The black candidates received the majority of the votes, aided by increased black turnout. Interestingly, three of the four candidates resorted to negative attacks in their mailings. The victor, Tishaura Jones, did not.
The 2012 returns present a final irony. Clay received 33,059 votes in St. Louis County, 66 percent of the vote. In the city, he received 24,613, 60 percent. The 1st Congressional District includes North County and parts of the central section. The county has had a larger black population than the city for more than two decades.