- Good evening, I'm Jim Kirchherr, and this is our '22 "Voters Guide" special.

We started doing these a few elections ago with reporters from St. Louis Public Radio, because while a lot of voters know who they're gonna vote for in those big races this year, that would be Missouri senator, senator and governor in Illinois, congressional races may be state offices, we're often less prepared for what we might find further down the ballot, those amendments and other questions in races.

While we're not gonna try to convince you one way or the other how to vote, but we are going to explain and discuss, give you a heads up before you cast your ballot.

So stay with us.

(compelling music) Much of the attention on election night in Missouri will be the race to replace retiring Republican senator, Roy Blunt.

In Illinois, the incumbent governor and a senator are running for reelection, and we'll talk about those and other races and issues on the ballots including Missouri's legalizing marijuana amendment.

But we're gonna start with the Missouri Senate race.

It's a face off between Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, and political newcomer, Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, part of the Anheuser Busch family.

It's very possible you've seen a commercial or two regarding this race, but Missouri is no longer the battleground state it once was, and St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum takes a look at what it will take to win or lose in the Senate race in Missouri.

(bright upbeat music) - Back when Missouri was an evenly divided state, Democrats won elections by piecing together a broad geographic coalition, but things began to collapse in the 2010s when Missouri Democrats lost legislative seats in rural areas that tilted toward the party for generations.

That was a precursor to the 2016, 2018, and 2020 election cycles, years in which Republicans won basically every major statewide contest.

If Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine is going to pull off the upset against Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, she'll have to recreate the coalition in three steps.

First, Busch Valentine will need to run up the score in places like St. Louis, St. Louis County, and Kansas City.

She'll also need strong turnout from Columbia, which is still fairly democratic, but more hospitable to Republicans in recent years.

This is probably the easiest step, especially since St. Louis County is quickly becoming a major democratic stronghold, but it's not enough for Busch Valentine to get a large percentage of the vote.

She also needs to turn a lot of people in these democratic jurisdictions out to the polls.

Second, Busch Valentine either has to come close to winning or win fast-growing suburbs with lots of conservative-minded voters.

This includes places like Jefferson and Lincoln Counties, which have taken a hard right turn over the past few election cycles.

It also means prevailing in parts of the state that encompass the Kansas City metro area like Clay, Platte, and Buchanan Counties, and she has to hold down GOP margins in St. Charles and Greene counties.

Gaining ground in those places has been a long-term desire among Democrats, but a desire that's not had much success.

Finally, Busch Valentine will need to hold down Schmitt's margins in rural counties, and this could be the most difficult task since voters in places like Northeast and Southeast Missouri soundly rejected democratic candidates in recent years.

What makes this challenge even more daunting is that Busch Valentine could do everything right like run compelling TV ads, get lots of volunteers, attack Schmitt on the right issues, but if President Joe Biden's approval rating is lagging among Missouri voters, she may lose anyway, especially if things like inflation continue to be top of mind.

Busch Valentine, though, is monitoring whether a backlash to the demise of Roe versus Wade energizes enough people to vote for Democrats, especially in some of the more populated suburbs.

Still, if the blow back isn't enough to resurrect the urban suburban rural coalition, then it's almost a certainty Schmitt will be headed to Washington as Missouri's next US Senator.

- And joining me now are political reporters, Jason Rosenbaum and Rachel Lippmann from St. Louis Public Radio.

Thanks for joining us, you guys.

A lot to talk about, but, Jason, just to continue on this Senate race, does this come down to anything more than abortion, inflation, Biden agenda, Trump agenda, or are there some real issues in here that people are gonna be looking at?

- No, I think you have the right idea.

A lot of times when we're talking about US Senate races in Missouri, it's the national environment that is prevalent.

And right now, as we're we're taping this, Republicans seem to be on track to have a better than usual election cycle, which is not surprising.

Typically the opposite party of the president does well after the first two years, but it's compounded by the fact that Missouri has become a much more Republican state since I started covering politics in 2006.

So if you have a candidate like Republican attorney general Eric Schmitt who is really talking about how bad Joe Biden is and that's resonating with people in Missouri that don't like him, I mean, it's as simple as that for him to win.

- [Jim] Yeah, are we playing much of a role?

Missouri hasn't been getting a lot of attention, I think, because of this race, not probably gonna play much of a role, you think, in the majorities in DC in the House and the Senate?

- Missouri is not a nationally targeted Senate race.

And while that may seem like inside baseball, that often is the difference between a candidate like Trudy Busch Valentine winning or losing.

Now she has self-funded her campaign and has been able to put a lot of ads on TV, really hammering Schmitt on the abortion issue since he actually signed the paperwork to ban most abortions in the state after Roe versus Wade was overturned.

But again, since national Democratic and Republican resources are not coming into the state, it's not seen as competitive, and since it's a Republican-leaning state, Schmitt seems to be favored at this moment.

- [Rachel] I think you're looking at a chicken or egg question there.

The money isn't coming in, because they don't think the race is competitive.

Do they think it would've been different with a different candidate?

I don't know, but she was unlikely to get resources, because there are so many other races that Democrats either need to target or protect.

- Yeah, so, Rachel, let's talk about something else that's going on this year in Missouri, the voter ID law requiring a photo ID.

Is this significant, do you think, in terms of who's gonna vote or not vote?

- I don't think you're going to see an impact in turnout in general.

It's not going to drive down turnout in any sort of drastic way, shape, or form.

There's been enough publicity about requiring this government issued photo ID, so you can't use a college ID or a work ID, for example, to prove your identity, and you aren't blocked from casting a ballot if you don't have that.

You can cast what's known as a provisional ballot.

They will validate your ID later.

Could it matter if it comes down to provisional ballots could tip an election one way or the other?

Yes, that is always a possibility, but in terms of suppressing voter turnout, in large ways, I don't think that's going to be a factor now.

- [Jim] So people should be prepared, though, to have that if they don't?

- Correct, if you have state, a government-issued photo ID, bring that to cast a regular ballot, but you will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot if for whatever reason you don't have a government ID.

- Okay, the other statewide office is Missouri auditor, Nicole Galloway, the Democrat, the only woman and Democrat I believe, right, - Yes.

- In state office is not running for reelection, and we have Democrat Alan Green, Republican Scott Fitzpatrick.

Significant differences, or is this still just a Republican Democrat race?

- The main significant difference is Fitzpatrick is already a statewide official and has lots of money at his disposal, and Green, who's a former state representative, actually came on our podcast Politically Speaking, and talked about how Democrats that donated to Galloway were not receptive to donating to him.

And the fundraising gap between the two is astonishing, given that this is Democrats trying to preserve their only statewide office, and pretty much everybody I talked to believe that Fitzpatrick is gonna win this and win this big, because of that fundraising disparity.

- I think one of the most interesting races in St. Louis County is county executive Sam Page, Mark Mantovani.

Rachel, what are we looking at here?

(chuckles) - [Rachel] This is going to be, I think, one of the closer races you are going to see in this election cycle.

Sam Page was looking at a glide path to reelection.

Katherine Pinner was the original nominee to be a Republican candidate.

- [Jim] And a total surprise from the Republicans.

- Correct.

Fringe candidate would be a charitable way to describe her.

And she stepped aside.

Some contend that she was pushed out, because the party apparatus realized they had no chance if she remained the candidate, and she was replaced, as you mentioned, by Mark Mantovani.

His name may sound familiar to watchers of county politics.

He's run for the county executive office as a Democrat twice.

He is running a campaign that reminds me a lot of the primary election between Sam Page and Jane Dueker.

He is hitting Dr.

Page on his competence at just running the apparatus in the machinery of government, and his relationships with people within the county government orbit, specifically the county council, he appears to be trying to get moderate Republicans to pair it with more moderate Democrats or those who just simply do not like Page to try and find a way to victory with the- - [Jim] A lot of divisions within the county.

- There are plenty of divisions within county politics, of course.

- I'm not quite sure even the Democrats and Republicans are where you expect them to be.

- And there is, of course, a question as to whether party divisions or party labels matter in a county just trying to make the trains run on time, position as county executive.

And Mr. Mantovani has said himself he's not even sure what the labels are needed, but he did see an opportunity to come and, as he put it, try to make county function a little bit better.

He's touting his business credentials as someone who knows how apparatus's big companies, 'cause county government is in a way a big company to work.

- Let's look at the St. Louis Board of Alderman presidency, John Coatar, Megan Green.

- Jack Coatar, yep.

- Jack.

- His official name is John, but most people know him as Jack.

- [Jim] Okay, but maybe I went by the ballot.

I'm not sure.

(chuckles) Take a quick assessment of that race.

And again, this is kind of special, because things are gonna change again pretty quickly.

This is filling in from the resignation?

- Yes, this is a seat that whoever wins will hold for about five months from the time they are sworn in until the election in April, the regular city election in April.

And the biggest thing that they gain out of this is the power of incumbency going into April.

The biggest challenge that they have is getting the Board of Alderman ready to operate as a 14 member board.

- The thing that I think is the elephant in the room is these are two white candidates in a city that is basically evenly divided between black and white people.

- That's unusual for any city election.

- And my biggest question is when there's another race for Board of Alderman president in March, does somebody like a state senator, Karla May run for this and then blow whoever wins out in North St. Louis, and then depending on who wins does well in Southwest St. Louis?

It's very possible that the person that wins this race could only be in office for three or four months depending on that dynamic.

- So let's talk quickly then about Missouri second congressional district, Ann Wagner, Democrat Trish Gunby.

I think the first congressional district, we don't need to talk much about.

- [Jason] Cori Bush is gonna win.

- Yeah, so let's talk about second congressional district.

Is it a lock for Republicans, or is this one of those competitive areas?

- I think that the Republican in this case, Ann Wagner, is favored this cycle, especially if it's a Republican wave election.

This is a newly formulated second district that includes Franklin County, Western St. Charles County, and Democrats are gonna need to do some long-term party building in those areas if they wanna make the second congressional district competitive long-term.

I could see that happening later in the decade, because it does include some very democratic areas, particularly my house in Richmond Heights, which is probably an 80% democratic area, but it's gonna take some time for that to actually occur.

Trish Gunby is a really good candidate.

She's a state rep, and she won a Republican seat, I believe, in 2019 in a special election.

- Right, okay, so we'll- - So, she may run this time.

She may fall short.

Maybe she runs in 2024, and she's done enough party building that I talked about, but it's gonna be an uphill battle for her, 'cause Ann Wagner's a good candidate.

- I will be very curious to see if this does prompt the Democratic party to start doing the party building efforts in the areas of the state that they need to do it.

They can no longer rely on St. Louis, St. Louis County, Columbia, and Kansas City to carry themselves in the state.

They are going to have to make outreach into St. Charles, Franklin, Warren, et cetera.

And will they realize that with the second congressional district and act on it?

- Great.

Well, we've got some yes, no issues as you know on the ballot.

We're gonna run through those, and then we're gonna talk about it.

State investments, allowing the legislature to override current restrictions and expanding the state treasurers investment options.

Amendment three, this is the one that would legalize marijuana for personal, not just medical use.

There are other provisions here, which we're going to get into.

Amendment four has to do with Kansas City Police Department raising minimum funding.

KCPD is still under control of a state board, and in Kansas City, this is often seen as a battle between state and local control.

Amendment five has to do with the Missouri National Guard.

It would move control of the guard from the Department of Public Safety to its own department under the governor.

And there's this question, should Missouri call a state constitutional convention?

This is not coming from a particular campaign or interest group.

It's a question that has to go on the ballot every 20 years, and it's that time again.

(upbeat music) So, I'm thinking it's this marijuana legalization, which I think from a simple question, yes or no, a lot of people will have an opinion.

Kind of seems like the devil's in the details on this one.

- Always is.

- Very much so.

Missouri legalized marijuana for medicinal use in 2018, and this essentially allows adults to go into a marijuana dispensary and buy a certain amount of cannabis.

And for a lot of St Louis residents in particular, like if they want cannabis, they go to Illinois already.

And I think that the mindset a among a lot of people is, well, if they're gonna be doing that, Missouri might as well make some money off of it and prevent people from being criminalized because of it.

But the devil really is in the details.

There has been a lot of criticism of this particular amendment, because it gives people who have medical marijuana licenses the ability to just sell it for adult use.

- Yeah, the sense is some people are being prevented from getting into this business.

- Make it more difficult to get into the business, absolutely.

- And in addition to the fact that there are some people who are like, well, that's just going to enrich existing license holders, it's part of this broader philosophical debate about whether Missouri should have a very restricted system of licenses where only a certain amount of entities get it, or it should be a lot looser like in several other states.

I think that there's a lot on the line here.

There is a feeling that if this does not pass, there's really not a pathway in the Missouri legislature to legalize marijuana for adult use.

And if that occurs, we may have to wait for the feds to do something across the entire country.

- The tricky situation you have as you do with any initiative petition is because the devil is in the details, they're not going to get everything right the first time.

There are going to be fixes and tweaks that need to be made.

That is true with any major program.

But because amendment three is an initiative petition, got on the ballot, because of signatures, that is how any fix needs to be made.

They can't go to the legislature and said, oops, we screwed up, we moved a comma over here.

That means something different.

We put the wrong tax amount in there.

Also, any fixes would have to go back to the voters.

So they perhaps have set themselves up through unforeseen consequences to create a system that may not sustain itself, and then you also spoil your chances, because what you have created become such a mess.

- Yeah, so this is something I think that is worth reading all of those issues besides simply deciding on the yes or no part of this.

So I wanna move on to something else.

So recently released Harvard poll revealed that nearly two thirds of young Americans are fearful about the future of this country's democracy.

So with the help of the Ethics Project, Nine PBS's Anne-Marie Berger sat down with some young diverse group of young future and current voters to get their perspectives on this.

(upbeat music) - Is being able to vote something that is important to you?

Where is it on your radar?

- I think it's really important, because we want certain things and we want different changes and stuff in the world and for our environment and ourself.

So, it really matters for our future and success.

- My mom always said that if you don't vote, don't complain about politics, because... (students laugh) Your vote is like your voice in society.

And I think it's like really important that once you reach that age mark to go and put yourself out there and show just how and who you wanna represent yourself with.

- We all know voting is important.

It's so easy to say voting is the cornerstone of democracy, voting is my voice, but yet consistently, America has a pretty low turnout of eligible voters.

It's consistently like around the 50% mark.

And I think it's really important to try and examine we all know it's important, but why are so many of us indifferent to it when it comes to actually doing it?

- Do you think it has to do with transportation, people feeling that their vote, voice doesn't matter?

What are some of those reasons?

- Voter suppression is like one major factor in that along with transportation and many other things.

And like Missouri right now, it's like the hardest to register to vote and to just vote in general.

- At the end of August, the new voting laws came into play, and you have to have a driver's license to vote.

- I don't think that there should be any barriers that would prevent people from voting.

I think that it's a right that we all have.

And I think that when the government starts requiring people to show their driver's license, I mean, their passport or birth certificate, I think that that can present a major barrier to certain people.

- How would you address being able to identify people?

Are there any solutions for that, so there aren't voter fraud or anything like that?

- We definitely have the technology to keep track of everybody.

So, I think if we just go about and modernize our systems, I think we totally could put in the infrastructure to keep everyone identified and have that system be secure, because it is clear that our elections are very impactful on our foreign policy and thus how other countries interact with us.

So it makes sense that other countries would want to try as much as they can to influence our elections as well.

So it makes sense to have some sort of identification to make sure that votes are valid.

But I think we definitely need to modernize it.

- If you're gonna require me to do something, I would like you to make it possible for me to do that.

Recently, I got my passport renewed, and it was over $100.

I don't know how much it costs to get a new driver's license or a state ID.

When you're too busy thinking about your day to day struggles, voting is not at the top of your list.

Getting a new ID to vote is not at the top of your list.

Rent, food, that sort of thing is what's occupying your mind, even though, again, we all know how important voting is.

- What are you gonna look for in politicians?

What matters to you?

What are those issues?

- So for me personally, the most important thing is of morally good character.

To me it's as simple as that.

- So morality as a base layer is big?

- Like as I am looking forward to voting, I would say that one of my priorities is making sure that there is a representative government and people serving in positions that look like America.

- A lot of the people look exactly the same.

They're all like older people, white men for the most part.

So, I totally agree morality is my number one, but I also wanna see somebody who at least looks like me, a woman, biracial, something like that, so they can represent the minority that I also represent.

- At least when I was in AP US history, my teacher told me how the Democratic and Republican parties used to be more overlapped and closely related and how we're more polarized than ever at this point.

- In order for us to actually change our democracy, we need people in politics who are morally good, which is so upsetting to say that it's become so rare right now for people to actually want the best for this country.

(upbeat music) - So we still have the Illinois races to cover, and for that, we turn to Hannah Meisel.

She's the politics and government editor for NPR Illinois, and she joined us from her office in Springfield.

Let's take a look at the top races, what I would consider the top races.

You've got the J.B. Pritzker running against a down stater, Darren Bailey.

It seems to me that Darren Bailey has the uphill battle here.

What would he need to do to make inroads and win this election against Pritzker?

- Well, in Illinois, two thirds of voters live in the Chicago area or what we call the collar counties around the city of Chicago and Cook County.

And those suburban voters, just like everywhere else in the country, have become... That's the battleground now.

And so I will be interested, though, in the votes that Darren Bailey gets in some of those suburbs, particularly where we have seen this parental rights movement take hold, this parental rights movement that began about masks in schools and then has evolved into being about teaching so-called CRT or promoting LGBT inclusion in schools, which conservatives have labeled indoctrination of all kinds.

And so, of course, Darren Bailey represents those people.

- [Jim] Illinois Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth is running for a second term facing off against a Republican, Kathy Salvi who, like other Republicans, is focusing on crime inflation, drugs, education, and the so-called Biden agenda.

She lags behind Duckworth in fundraising and name recognition, but how much are these issues going to resonate now and in the future?

- Is this going to take hold in Illinois, particularly in the suburbs?

And then what does that mean for the next election cycle?

- [Jim] The Democrats redrew congressional districts for this election and created a new 13th district.

It stretches from Metro East through Springfield-Decatur to Champaign-Urbana with Democrat Nikki Budzinski and Republican Regan Deering in the running.

- Well, certainly Nikki Budzinski, who is the Democrat here, that district was definitely drawn with her in mind.

She was the person who had been interested in that seat for the longest time.

She has ties to the Pritzker administration, having worked in there.

She's been a long time union organizer, labor organizer.

Also most recently, before returning to Illinois to run this campaign, she had worked in the Biden administration.

But Regan Deering, she is a lifelong resident of Decatur.

Her family's very important.

Her grandfather, founder of ADM, and she's using everything that she has in her arsenal.

This is a district that, of course, was drawn with Democrat in mind, but it's definitely not a lock for Democrats.

- [Jim] Illinois also has on the ballot constitutional amendment one, the so-called workers' rights amendment, which would strengthen collective bargaining rights.

Illinois's already a strong union state, but if this passes Meisel says however it's implemented will likely be challenged.

- It's really gonna be up to the courts to determine what that means and interpret it.

And so that's why I say we don't know what'll happen, and that's been conservative's main argument not to vote for it, but, again, an argument that has not been very well funded.

- Hannah, on election night in Illinois, anything particularly that you're gonna be looking at?

- I'm gonna be very interested in voter turnout.

As you know, during midterm election years, voter turnout is certainly down from presidential election years, but I'm really interested in the level of voter engagement.

We will see, and voter turnout really says a lot about what kinds of political strategies work, what kinds of political strategies will be pulled from in the future, and what kind of country we will be going forward.

- Great, so, Jason, Rachel, I'm gonna ask you guys the same question I asked Hannah.

Jason, election night, besides the races, anything you're gonna be looking at, any red flags, green flags, whatever?

(chuckles) - I'm gonna be looking to see if Trudy Busch Valentine gets in the teens in some rural counties.

There's been some suggestion that Missouri Democrats have hit bottom in rural Missouri, and I actually think that it's possible they could do worse than McCaskill or Nicole Galloway did.

And Missouri Democrats will not win statewide elections if they completely write off the rural parts of the state.

It's just not possible mathematically.

- Rachel, how about you?

- I am going to be looking to see on election day whether the election denier movement has any impact at polling places, is out attempting to intimidate voters in areas.

Obviously with Missouri not being particularly competitive for either party, I don't know if that is going to be as much of a thing as it will be, but it'll be interesting to see whether or not some of that movement still bubbles up and there are attempts to influence one way or the other and whether any candidates afterwards begin to cry, oh, foul, I don't accept the results.

- Great, thank you.

Interesting year as always every year, but this year particularly.

So I wanna thank you guys, Jason Rosenbaum, Rachel Lippmann, Hannah Meisel for joining us, and I wanna thank you for joining us as well.

I'm Jim Kirchherr.

Thank you.

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