Missouri has been regarded as a reliable Republican stronghold for much of the 21st century. 

But time and time again at the ballot box, voters have approved citizen-led petitions to pass Democratic-coded issues addressing abortion rights, marijuana legalization, Medicaid expansion and more. 

After Amendments 4 and 5 — which would have restricted the state’s initiative petition process and eliminated the state income tax through expanded sales taxes, respectively — were resoundingly defeated during the Aug. 4 primaries, some are wondering if Missouri is secretly a blue state, at least for ballot issues. 

The Beacon analyzed state and county voting data and spoke with political science experts to find out if that was truly the case, and what the state’s historical voting patterns might mean for the upcoming November election. 

Missouri’s voting record

Missouri used to be a more competitive state, both in general presidential elections and in state races. The last time Missourians voted for a Democratic presidential candidate was in 1996. And Democrats were elected to various statewide executive positions until 2018.

When it comes to ballot issues, Missouri voters have passed 48 out of 78 of the questions put before them since 2000. That represents both citizen-led initiative petitions and questions the legislature put before voters, but excludes the recurring Parks, Soil and Water tax and constitutional convention questions. 

While ballot initiative petitions have been used to pass issues that align with the Democratic Party platform, St. Louis University political science professor Steve Rogers said, it’s challenging to say Missouri is a stealth blue state for ballot issues. 

If Missouri were secretly blue at heart, Rogers said, he would expect issues like abortion or marijuana legalization to pass by wider margins instead of the narrow 51% to 48% margins they received. Moreover, issues like gun control would make an appearance on the ballots.  

What’s more likely, he said, is that Missouri has a General Assembly that is more conservative than the comparatively moderate general population. 

Rogers is also the director of the SLU/YouGov poll, which regularly surveys Missourians on policy issues facing the state. He said the survey has found that Missourians are more progressive on some issues, like abortion, which can cause them to butt heads with the legislature.

“I would say the reason (Amendment 3 in 2024) passed is that the status quo was really extreme,” Rogers said. “We were one of the most restrictive states on abortion. Most Missourians are pro-choice in some way, especially in terms of rape, incest and life of (an endangered) mother.”

The most recent YouGov poll found that 60% of Democratic, Republican and independent voters supported abortion being legal in cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly or medical emergencies.

Or in the case of Amendment 4, people were not keen to give up the power that allowed them to challenge the legislature when they disagreed, said J. Miles Coleman with the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“At just a human level, if I’m a voter, why would I vote to give myself less power?” Coleman said. “That’s basically what the Republicans were asking of the electorate.”

Another factor contributing to the success of these ballot initiatives is voter frustration over bureaucratic roadblocks for legislation. The vote to legalize sports betting in 2024 is one example. 

“There have been issues that the legislature, whether red or blue, has just not acted on,” Rogers said. “The legislature, for multiple years, had considered legalizing sports gambling, and I would probably say a majority wanted to legalize it. But it got gummed up in the Senate because of video lotteries. It’s like, ‘OK, the legislature just couldn’t get its act together.’”

Money and interest groups can also play a role in getting a measure passed. Going back to sports betting, almost every major professional sports team in Missouri and national betting giants like DraftKings and FanDuel heavily supported the measure. The campaign for Amendment 2 spent $43 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive in Missouri history.

Secretly blue or not, Rogers said, the initiative petition process remains an option for citizens to challenge the legislature when it can’t, or won’t, take up an issue. 

Who decides, urban or rural?

When it comes to Missouri’s voting patterns, discussions about the rural and urban divide in the state are a common theme. 

There’s some merit as to why. Nearly 59% of Missouri’s population lives in just 10 of the 114 counties and one independent city in the state. Those are St. Louis city and Boone, Cass, Clay, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, St. Charles and St. Louis counties. 

Most of those 10 locales include urban or suburban areas like St. Charles, Springfield, Kansas City and Columbia. 

Opponents of initiative petitions have complained that those urban areas have too much sway. Backers of Amendment 4 claimed in the run-up to the August primaries that the initiative petition process doesn’t require buy-in from the state’s rural areas since campaigners can focus on the more population-dense areas for a majority of votes, St. Louis Public Radio reported.

The Missouri initiative petition process does require that statutory changes must be signed by 5% of legal voters in six of the eight congressional districts, and constitutional amendments must be signed by 8% of legal voters in six of the eight congressional districts. 

Amendment 4 would have kept the signature thresholds the same, but required a measure to pass in all eight congressional districts instead of by a simple statewide majority.

But most ballot measures do require some buy-in from rural communities across the state to succeed, data shows.

Since 2020, rural counties — identified using the Health Resources and Services Administration’s definition — have gotten their chosen outcome in eight out of 12 ballot measures. 

Notably, though, the four measures that a majority of rural counties voted against but still passed were Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, sports betting and abortion rights. 

Even in cases where rural voters did not get what they wanted, the data tells a complicated story.

Take abortion, for example. In 2024, Amendment 3 legalized abortion and passed 51.6% to 48.4%. 

The most populous places in the state represented 70.4% of all “yes” votes. But in Cass, Greene, Jasper and Jefferson counties — among the state’s most populous — the amendment would have failed if it had been a county-level measure. 

Even in the counties where it did pass, those areas aren’t particularly progressive bastions. Except for Boone and St. Louis counties and St. Louis city, all other counties voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and have voted with the rural will on other issues.

So, unless there’s strong consensus between both urban and suburban counties, Rogers said, it does take rural votes to pass a measure.

Lessons for November

While the August primary is already fading quickly into the rearview mirror, the voting trends it exhibited will play an important role in the upcoming November elections.

At the ballot box, voters could see up to five different questions. Those are:

• Amendment 3, which would prohibit abortions except in cases of rape and incest through 12 weeks of pregancy, fetal anomalies and medical emergencies and would ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. 
• Amendment 7, which would create a state-run endowment fund to be invested into exchange-traded stocks on the S&P 500. Revenue from the fund would be used to eliminate state-imposed taxes. 
• Amendment 8, which would require the election of county sheriffs.
• Missouri congressional map veto referendum, which would deny the use of the Missouri First congressional redistricting map passed in 2025. The map has been heavily criticized for splitting parts of Kansas City into three districts.
• Missouri initiative and referendum powers and legislative change requirements amendment, which would prevent lawmakers from changing the initiative petition process or repealing or amending citizen-led petitions without 80% of voters approving the changes. 

The last two are being disputed in court cases, which could affect their placement on the ballot. 

Alongside the initiative petition protections and veto referendum, Amendment 3 is expected to be hotly contested in November as campaigns have already jumped into high gear with fundraising. 

Groups aiming to defeat Amendment 3, like Stop the Ban, are confident that Missouri’s previous voting record will lead to the measure’s defeat in November.

“Missourians’ overwhelming rejection of Amendment 4 made clear that we are not going to let politicians overturn the will of the people,” the coalition said in a statement to The Beacon. “

“The same politicians who attempted this power grab also put Amendment 3 on the ballot, which seeks to repeal our vote, take control away from women and families and once again ban abortion. Missourians continue to see through politicians’ dirty tricks, and we are confident that voters will say NO on Amendment 3 to protect the will of the people and stop the abortion ban.”

The Beacon reached out to Her Health, Her Future for comment but they did respond before publication.

Those campaigns will be important to the outcome, Coleman said, especially since it is a tumultuous midterm election year.

“It’s going to come down to how the campaigns are run,” Coleman said. “It is probably going to be broadly more favorable to Democrats than the last election cycle was in 2024. The Democrats could just be more energized, and that could allow them to overcome the conservative wing of the state.”

The Amendment 3 voters will see in November does have an added component. The ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors could have a big impact on swaying some voters, Rogers said. 

“I’d be a little cautious on saying that this Amendment 3 is just flipping the old Amendment 3,” Rogers said. “We polled on Amendment 3, and we asked likely voters their position on 80% to 90% of possible abortion issues, and then the transgender care items for youth. I found that a change in someone’s transgender views has more impact on their vote choice on the amendment than abortion views.”

For now, the SLU YouGov poll shows that neither side of the issue has a majority of support. But that aligns with what happened when it polled on the 2024 amendment. Since the survey is conducted in February, more voters will have had time to come to a decision since then.

Regardless of the trends, Rogers said the most important thing to start with is showing up to vote. 

“Missouri voters are definitely going to have a voice,” Rogers said.