Missouri isn’t the competitive swing state that it was during the 20th century — or even in the 2000s and 2010s.
But even though the state’s voters may continue to back GOP candidates for statewide posts like governor, they may be amenable to backing a ballot initiative that legalizes abortion. That’s one of the key takeaways from a poll commissioned in February from St. Louis University and YouGov.
During Friday’s episode of The Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on Air, St. Louis University professor Steven Rogers broke down some of the poll’s findings — including that 52% of respondents would support a generic Republican candidate for governor and 38% would back a Democratic contender.
“What I would probably say some of the big takeaways from this finding is that the GOP Republicans are very likely to continue their control of the governor's mansion following this election,” Rogers said.
Who that GOP candidate will actually be in the governor’s race is more uncertain. While the poll shows that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is leading Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel, 49% of respondents are undecided. That rises to 66% when polling the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls.
While Rogers noted that the people polled were likely general election voters and not a primary election sample, he did add that the findings were telling.
“And so here, a lot of voters may know that they're probably going to vote for a Republican or Democrat, but they aren't quite sure about the candidates or who's running or necessarily have strong opinions about them,” Rogers said.
Jo Mannies, a veteran political reporter, said that the gap between a generic Republican gubernatorial candidate and a generic Democratic candidate is not as conclusive as it may seem. By comparison, Gov. Mike Parson defeated Democrat Nicole Galloway in 2020 by more than 16 percentage points.
Mannies also said that plenty could happen between now and November.
“I think it means that once the ads start running, a lot is going to depend on who's got money, who's got organization, what their message is, and what issues that they're pushing resonate with people,” said Mannies, who is St. Louis Public Radio’s senior political reporter. “And in March right now, we don't know any of that.”
Abortion ballot item gets 44% support
The SLU/YouGov poll showed that 44% of respondents were willing to support a ballot measure legalizing abortion up to fetal viability. That’s compared to 38% of respondents who oppose the measure and 19% who are unsure.
While that’s not a majority, Rogers expects that undecided number to decline if backers of the abortion rights initiative are able to get enough signatures to take the measure to voters.
“There haven't been as many campaign ads about it, there hasn't been any education about it,” Rogers said. “And so I really expect that if we poll on this again, say, in five months, that 19% number will go down. I'm not going to really make a prediction about whether it's going to go up from there, but I bet there's going to be more certainty later.”
Even though Republican officials almost uniformly oppose abortion rights and Democratic elected officials consistently back abortion rights, Rogers said his poll found that 24% of GOP respondents would support the ballot initiative.
Mannies said the proposed constitutional amendment shows that the split on abortion may have to do more with gender than party affiliation.
“The supporters are just focused on trying to get the signatures and where our opponents and some of their allies like, frankly, the Catholic Church in the St. Louis area, are trying to get people not to sign,” Mannies said. “So that's more of an underground campaign going on. But if they get the signatures, I think then you'll see a ton of ads and it'll be very different and there weren't that won't be that many undecided.”
Backers of the abortion initiative need around 171,000 signatures by early May to make it on the ballot. It’s not clear if that happens whether Missourians will vote on the measure in August or November.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr and our production intern is Roshae Hemmings. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
