TWMP Column: Breaking Down the State Senate Results

Scott Faughn breaks down the results of the latest state senate primaries.

#11 SD32 Senator Jill Carter defeats Ellen Nichols in a 40 point landslide

Senator Jill Carter 69%

Ellen Nichols 30%

The race that was the biggest blowout of any seriously contested primary in the state goes to Senator Jill Carter’s blowout nearly 40 point win in southwest Missouri. Big big money was spent on both sides with Senator Carter’s Senate colleagues raising money for her and some healthcare groups and Dr. Nichols herself kicking in big on her side. 

Sen. Carter scored most of the biggest endorsements including the Carpenter’s Union, and Farm Bureau. Dr. Nichols got an unexpected endorsement from AFP which seemed to start more personality driven than policy driven, and ended with creating an enemy where one didn’t exist. 

The real story of the race is that Dr. Nichols is the wife of former Senator Bill White, who Senator Carter defeated in his re-election bid four years ago. However, this race was more reality show than a reality that Sen. Carter could lose. However, the potential for it to become tighter was enough so see Will Wheeler dispatched to advise towards the end. 

Victory had Dr. Nichols where Sen. Carter had Barkalge, Axiom, and Leadbelt Strategies. In the end over a million was spent by all sides. 

After all of that money was spent Sen. Carter doubled up Nichols in Jasper County, and tripled her total in Newton. 

#10 SD4 Former Rep. Gina Mitten defeats Rep. Steve Butz

Gina Mitten 68%

Rep. Steve Butz 32%

This race was set as two popular democratic politicians pitted against each other that was supposed to go down to the wire. In the end, this race was probably over at filing. Rep. Butz raised a great deal of money, had several I.Es from school choice interests and ended with the money lead. 

Former Rep. Mitten kept up the pace with fundraising and had help from the NEA, but in reality she effectively made this race about abortion, and won with it. 

You also can’t help but acknowledge that Steve Butz is a white, heterosexual, Christian, male. The Democratic party has spent a generation telling voters people like Steve Butz are the problem in society, and their most progressive voters such as primary voters clearly agree. Just as the case with former Senator Hummel, I’m not sure Rep. Butz could have won this race. 

However, you can’t let that take away from Gina Mitten’s campaign. The truth is she started this race with a gender advantage, but not a 36 point advantage. She took her advantage and ran hard right through election day and was rewarded with a landslide. 

#9 SD34 Rep. Mike Jones blows out Rep. Sean Pouche 

Rep. Mike Jones 62%

Rep. Sean Pouche 28%

You know: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”. That Ferris Bueller quote kind of sums up Rep. Mike Jones 2026. Five months ago Mike Jones was one of over a hundred House members looking at a very very tough re-election in a district his party has no business winning. Today he is heading to the Missouri Senate to be one of 22-24 Republicans, and he chooses to actually be a senator (which would be a huge break from the current 24 Republican Representatives) he could impact every single public policy in Missouri. 

Jones had Axiom and brought in a haul fundraising working with Leadbelt Strategies. He carried Platte by approximately 2,500 votes, and dominated in Buchanan. From the day Congressman Graves retired, and Councilman Willett withdrew, Jones put together a top tier campaign team and rolled to an easy election. He got the MRL and AFP endorsements, and most importantly the cops. 

One thing that caught my eye was that Platte County did take more Democrat ballots than I would have thought. However, Buchanan is trending more Republican. This will be the #3 race in the state, but the gap between #2 and #3 is very very wide.

#7 SD28 Dr. Sam Alexander defeats Rep. Brad Pollitt

Sam Alexander 53%

Rep. Brad Pollitt 28%

This race will seem like an upset to a lot of folks, but Alexander had been working this district for two years. Alexander did a solid job of fundraising and scored the Missouri Right to Life endorsement. While Pollitt had a laundry list of endorsements including Senator Crawford and a fundraising advantage. 

Alexander had Sophia Shore running his race, where Pollitt had Axiom on his campaign. 

This was a nasty one, and Alexander being a doctor has a good back story. However, Pettis County has been recently radicalized recently booting a mayor, and that same group viciously turning on Pollitt. Alexander exhibited some serious skills reaping the benefit of that group without having to own some of their literally insane rhetoric. This group of goofs will most likely turn on him, but they will be turning on Senator Alexander when they do.  

As for where Alexander will ultimately fall in the Senate, I predict a pretty solid senator. He doesn’t seem like the type to take orders and in a chamber where these self proclaimed constitutional conservatives PQ’d a constitutional amendment without a second of debate (narrator: the PQ led to an 80-20 asskicking) a backbone, just any single person with a backbone is sorely needed. 

I think he will surprise some folks, after all this district has a history of producing pretty solid senators. 

#8 SD8 House Speaker Patterson comfortably defeats former Rep. Dan Stacy

Rep. Jon Patterson 62%

Dan Stacy 37%

This race could have been a sleeper. More to the point, Democratic special interest groups could have chosen to use the primary to make a run at Patterson, but it appears they were busy in other primaries. Speaker Patterson has a couple votes that Stacy, or groups who wanted Ingle to win and knows she would have defeated Stacy, could have exploited and gave Patterson on. 

However, none of that happened, and Patterson cruised to the nomination. If you were putting together the right scenario for Stacy it would have included not getting involved in a messy party caucus fight which ticked off a lot of typical supporters of campaigns like his. He was just never quite able to put together the type of coalition Joe Nicola did two years ago. 

He had Axiom, and Victory with Leadbelt involved, and they will earn their money in the general. If you want to see the skill set of Patterson look no further than the pic of him shaking hands with Stacy posted to Facebook. 

Looking at the general, this seat has been trending democrat, and Rep. Keri Ingle is a top tier democrat who has already flipped a State Rep. seat. However, Jon Patterson is like he was created in a lab to hold this seat. He has everything from the look, the background story, the fundraising, the political team, and all the intangibles to get every single vote humanly possible for a republican to get. If he loses, it’s simply because the district trend line combined with what could be a bad Republican year was insurmountable. 

In summation, outstanding primary campaign from Patterson from start to finish, to the week after the finish. This could have been much closer.  

#5 SD16 Rep. Hardwick convincingly wins hard fought three way race 

Rep. Bill Hardwick 43%

Hannah Kelly 30%

Rep. Don Mayhew 22%

This race saw Hardwick come out of the gate as the front runner and was treated as such with a summer full of attacks from both of his opponents. He raised the most money and was a big success story for J&J as the casinos went in hard for Kelly.

Hardwick’s race was run by Sophie Shore with Axiom involved. The race got very very dirty and it’s rare that in a three way that when a front runner sees both of his opponents go all in on negatives on that front runner that that front runner comes in. One key point of the race was MRL coming in and endorsing multiple candidates including Hardwick which was actually a huge win for him. 

Rep. Mayhew received help on his campaign from Daniel Seitz  and he knocked the heck out of the doors and hit facebook hard promoting the fact that both of his opponents were “bought”. Don is loud, you never have to wonder if he is in the same room as you are, and he made some noise with most of his harshest attacks aimed at Hardwick. However, in the end he was right he needed money to compete, and that money never came. 

Former Rep. Hannah Kelly put up a hell of a fight. It was a very good campaign ran by Elijah Haahr with some help from Michael Hafner. She threaded a very close trail of taking the casino money, while claiming she was anti-gambling. Coming from the part of the district with the smallest population base. She won her home county big, and fought Hardwick vote for vote in Laclede County. 

In the end, this race was won by a veteran with the most money who had to fend off constant attacks from both sides. Hardwick won his home base in Pulaski by 1,500 votes over Mayhew, fought Kelly to a draw in Laclede, and won the western side of the district to pull off a 13 point win in a race he led wire to wire. 

#6 SD18 Rep. Greg Sharpe finishes strong for a convincing win

Rep. Greg Shape 46%

Dusty Blue 30%

Rep. Ed Lewis 22%

This race was odd from the start. There was a big split between the typically northern Missouri republicans who had the money and the agriculture community. Your Axiom folks and their money rallied behind Rep. Ed Lewis whereas the agriculture community always wanted to support Rep. Greg Sharpe. While Dusty Blue ran hard on the angry about everything argument and was leading the race until the last two weeks. 

Rep. Ed Lewis used his support of school choice and IP reform and other issues to become the leader in money early on. However, there was a point in the race where he wasn’t catching fire and ultimately while he did win Randolph County and come close in Macon his campaign simply ran out of steam at the and a segment of his supporters went to Sharpe to avoid Blue. 

Speaking of Blue he took to elective politics extremely well in his first effort. Most of the summer he was leading this race with his message of being angry about everything. His opposition file was as thick as any I’ve ever seen; it didn’t seem to impact him until the end when both Sharpe and Lewis supporters were firing at him. Some would say Blue had to spend a good portion of his budget attempting to communicate to women that the multiple allegations were untrue and it knocked him off his message of how angry he was. In the end this Sophie Shore/Trial Attorney campaign made a hell of a run, but northeast Missouri just wasn’t the place to pull off this type of race with his candidate. 

Rep. Greg Shape is simply the candidate northeast Missouri voters want to vote for. He is a farmer, clearly a common sense conservative, and if he was the only candidate against Blue this wouldn’t have been as competitive of a race. His race was ran by Barklage and Ratliff and in the end he consolidated the anti-Blue money and northeast Missouri came home to the farmer they actually wanted to vote for anyway.

#3 SD14 Rep. Raychel Proudie defeats John Bowman in four way race 

Rep. Raychel Proudie 38%

John Bowman 30%

Shante Duncan 15%

Joe Palm 14%

This race saw two very experienced Jeff City politicians in Rep. Raychel Proudie and former Rep. John Bowman in a primary with two St. Louis experienced politicians in Shante Duncan and Joe Palm. 

This senate race proved no different than any other in that the two less experienced candidates couldn’t raise the money and therefore couldn’t compete with the more experienced and better funded candidates.

 The last month the race has really boiled down to Proudie vs. Bowman. Duncan and Palm primarily benefited from voters turned off by negative attacks on the frontrunners. In the end it was simple. Proudie had more money, ran a great campaign, and as a woman started this Democratic primary with a built in cushion so she is onto the Senate. 

#4 SD10 Mike Deering defeats Rep. Tricia Byrnes by double digits

Mike Deering 55%

Rep. Tricia Byrnes 44%

This race got real heated down the stretch. In fact the whole race was really weird. It started when Sen. Fitzwater did not seek re-election but to his credit he gave everyone time to make their own decisions on the race. After some deliberation the race saw Rep. Chad Perkins take a pass, then the man would have been the frontrunner Rep. Doyle Justus didn’t run, Rep. Jim Schulte from the Kingdom of Callaway took a pass. 

At that point Cattleman’s Association executive Mike Deering jumped in and jumped in hard. When filing opened no serious candidates had stepped up from the more populated east side of the district and he was on his way to an easy win. Then at the last moment Rep. Tricia Byrnes who was running for a St. Charles County office at the time changed her mind and jumped in. 

Deering countered with one of the best kickoff events in recent memory highlighted by both Governor Parson and Governor Kehoe and a huge crowd in attendance, and stockpiling money. 

Byrnes started attacking Deering from the jump. To her credit she ran a spirited campaign keying on data centers as a boogy man, and doing her best to attract MATA money. Her campaign was ran by Victory and the PAC was helped by Sophie Shore. It didn’t help that Byrnes spent some time in the hospital, but it might just be that she needed a longer campaign to consolidate her geographical advantage. 

Deering’s campaign was ran by Ratliff, Barklage, Axiom, and Leadbelt, and the dude just grinded. He was backed by Farm Bureau, FOP, Firefighters, and the Carpenters and ran a campaign similar to Kurtis Gregory’s campaign two years ago, with a similar win. 

He won Callaway and Montgomery where a massive amount of money was spent attacking him and data centers to no real impact. But what was impactful was he won Pike with the incumbent rep working hard against him. He won Lincoln where Byrnes had to win, by a thousand votes, and he only lost St. Charles by 500 votes. 

Folks who are eager to say Governor Kehoe is weak should know the work he did the last week of the race, and read these results to see the Gov. still has legit juice.

#2 SD20 Lori Rook upsets Senator Curtis Trent  

Lori Rook 53%

Sen. Curtis Trent 47%

The biggest upset was the second closest race of the cycle. Attorney Lori Rook ran an excellent campaign and it was perfectly in line with what Republicans love in a primary: acid level hate. That nearly perfect campaign netted the biggest upset in the last fifteen years of senate campaigns.

Her race was run by Sophie Shore and Rook put a bunch of the money in herself, and some of her colleagues in the bar bought in big time down the stretch. She ran the campaign first on the issue that Sen. Trent was liberal. Which really didn’t sell. Then she called an audible and went hard on the issue that Trent passed too many pieces of legislation specially SB 4 which she brilliantly took a law that forces data centers to pay electric rates that protect consumers from every subsidizing them into Trent being pro data centers. It was brilliant. Then they found a picture where it appeared that the same guy they were just attacking for passing too many bills was asleep in the senate chamber. Again, freaking brilliant. 

Trent’s campaign was ran by Victory and Axiom with Barklage in there as well. He had all the money, but it appears that Rook kinda snuck up on him. In the end, you really have to tip your cap to the campaign Rook ran. She more won it than Trent lost it.  

#1 SD6 Jake Vogel defeats Rep. Rudy Viet and Comm. Ike Skelton in a nail biter.

Jake Vogel 26%

Rep. Rudy Viet 24%

Ike Skelton 22%

Derrick Spicer 12%

Lisa Thomas 10%

SD6 started off the cycle as the top primary in the state, and ended the primary cycle as the closest race in the state. It was nasty, expensive, and in the end the campaigns really mattered. 

Rep. Rudy Viet is one of the finest people to serve in the legislature and you could see what type of reputation he has in his community in how he won Cole County by 1,800 votes even with a ton of negative hits dropped on him. His campaign was ran by Jon Ratliff and in the end won his county, but that didn’t translate well enough outside his home turf to win. 

Speaking of that home turf, former city councilman Derek Spicer came in fourth with 12%. James Harris ran his race, and while he worked it hard never really had the money to bust into that top tier. Former Rep. Lisa Thomas came in third in her home Camden County and her real contributions were probably taking some votes from Skelton and funding some pretty vicious and ultimately unsuccessful attacks on Vogel. 

Camden County Presiding Commissioner Ike Skelton jumped in the race at the very end of filing, and shot up to the lead in the early polls. The campaign was run by Sophie Shore on her home turf at the lake, and got a lot out of a little money. That early lead didn’t hold as he was bombarded with negative mail. Despite the attacks he won Camden and Miller Counties and finished a close third overall. He has a base he can hold, but even with good geography you need some money to run for state senate. 

The winner ultimately was Jefferson City businessman Jake Vogel. This was an up and down campaign where he took all the fire and came through. The campaign was ran by Barklage, Axiom, and Leadbelt and in the end the campaign mattered. He received a key MO Right to Life endorsement, and that was key. As was the Missouri Chamber hitting Skelton. Vogel came in second in a divided Cole County, won Morgan and Moniteau but he won the race in Miller and Camden where he finished a strong second. 

In a race where Skelton held the lake and Rudy won Cole, Vogel won the race by running a great campaign and finishing in the top two everywhere.