If Missouri Democrats are looking for help to get out of a decade-long electoral funk, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear may be able to provide a practical roadmap.
Beshear won the governorship in Kentucky in 2019 and 2023, even though that state would eventually vote for President Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024 by landslides. He told a capacity crowd on Saturday at the Missouri Democratic Party Truman Dinner that winning on tough terrain requires sticking with convictions, using plain and understandable language and being laser-focused on economic issues.
“I am living, breathing proof that we as Democrats, when we run the right way, can win anywhere,” Beshear said at the state party’s annual Truman dinner Saturday night at the Grand Hall in St. Louis. “And what's important about winning is, when Democrats win, we do something Republicans can't: We govern well.”
Beshear, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, came to Missouri at a low point for the state’s Democratic Party. Democrats have only won a single statewide race since 2016, and have failed to gain significant amounts of ground in the Missouri General Assembly.
The state party’s malaise comes amid a disappointing 2024 election cycle for the national party, where Trump returned to the White House after defeating then-Vice President Kamala Harris. But Beshear said the chaotic nature of Trump’s second term as president gives Democrats an opening, especially in the 2026 midterm elections.
“They're thinking about the roads and bridges they're going to travel that day. They're thinking about the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their communities,” Beshear said. “When we focus on those issues, we earn the faith of the American people. That while they might disagree with us on this or that, we are working to make their lives just a little bit easier, just a little bit better.”
For Beshear, Trump is president now “because he convinced that last group of undecided voters that he was more focused on helping you pay for that next bill, while the vice president was distracted on a number of issues.”
“Now I don't think that's fair, but he convinced people of it,” Beshear said. “But look at what he's doing now. He is obsessed with culture war issues. And he's gambling away our economic gains on non-economic grounds, making it harder for people to see a doctor in their community with what that Big Ugly Bill is going to do to rural hospitals.”
Beshear emphasized that Democrats can focus on economic concerns without sacrificing principle. He noted that he vetoed legislation from Kentucky’s GOP-controlled legislature that curtailed gender affirming care for minors and placed harsh restrictions on abortion.
In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, he said even if Kentucky Republican voters didn’t like all of his decisions at least they knew he was coming from a place of conviction.
“People expect and demand authenticity, so you have to stand up for your convictions,” Beshear said. “You have to stand up for your beliefs. And people respect belief and conviction, even if they don't always agree with where you are on it.”
He added that getting through to the American people in next year’s election, which includes using blunt, non-jargony words within messaging, will be critical to turn the page from the Trump era.
“If you believe in bettering the lives of the American people, this next election isn't just important to move past the cruelty of the Trump administration,” Beshear said. “It's important to bring the country back together, to begin to heal, to eliminate the us versus them, and then to just move, not right or left, but forward together.”
A critical election
In some respects, 2026 wasn’t supposed to be a particularly decisive election for Missouri Democrats or Republicans.
Next year only one faces a statewide contest — GOP state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick — which is not expected to be particularly competitive. And while Missouri Democrats are focusing on gaining ground in the state House and Senate, there is little chance they will capture either chamber.
But the stakes got much higher for Missouri Democrats since mid-May.
In that month, GOP lawmakers placed a measure on the 2026 ballot aimed at repealing much of a 2024 abortion rights amendment. And this month, Republicans also put a measure before voters that would make it much harder to approve constitutional amendments placed on the ballot through the initiative petition process.
Democrats will be working to defeat the abortion and initiative petition measures and also seeking to place a recently passed congressional map that targets Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City up for a referendum.
“We are going to stand up with citizen power in the state against Republican politicians that want to take it away,” Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan said Saturday. “That is our battle plan, and that's how we're going to win in 2026.”
Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, D-Affton, said the referendum on the congressional map allows Democrats to channel their anger about the state of the country into something practical. He said he’s had around 80 people contact him about getting trained to gather signatures since the September special session ended just over a week ago.
“I think they were angry then, and they want an avenue,” Beck said. “And now we know exactly what we need to do.”
Beck also said Trump’s administration blundered when they pressured Missouri Republicans to pursue mid-decade redistricting even though the final product could be defeated at the ballot box.
“When you nationalize what we normally do here in Missouri, we draw on our own congressional maps, and then you let somebody else do that, in this case, the President's administration, you're going to have screw ups,” Beck said. “
Can Democrats take advantage of midterm trends?
Beck and other Senate Democrats are seeking to capture several Republican seats in Springfield and the Kansas City area. All of those districts have been held for years by Republicans but have become more Democratic-leaning in the Trump era.
“They're going to do the work to pull this out,” Beck said. “I think you're going to see more grassroots now than you ever have.”
And depending on which congressional lines apply for 2026, national Democratic groups may have a keen interest in Missouri for different reasons.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is poised to target U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, in the state’s St. Louis area’s based 2nd Congressional District.
Under the revised map, national Democrats may have to spend millions to help Cleaver prevail in a much more Republican district. They may also pour money and organizational resources into stronger-than-usual candidates against Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves, who represent less GOP-leaning districts in the new map.
For Mark Osmack, who is running to succeed Republican Dennis Hancock on the St. Louis County Council, a combination of angst over Trump’s performance and backlash against Missouri Republicans could help Democrats like him up and down the ticket next year.
And part of that strategy includes simple messaging that Republicans in Missouri are ignoring what voters want.
“I think it's quite the hubris and quite the arrogance from the Republican Party right now for them to say that the Missouri voters don't know what they're doing,” Osmack said.
