Political History
From 1904 to 2004, Missouri's electoral votes went to the person who became President of the United States, with one exception. In 1956 during the landslide re-election of President Dwight Eisenhower, when Missouri went to neighboring Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. Missouri's accuracy in voting with the national consensus includes the "too close to call" elections of 1948 (when Harry S. Truman was elected to his only full term as President), 1960, 1976, and 2000. (Although in 2000 Missouri indicated only the winner of the electoral vote, not the winner of the popular vote.)
In 2006, Missouri's bellwether status gained renewed attention because of the 2006 Senate race between incumbent Republican Senator Jim Talent and Democratic State Auditor Claire McCaskill, which was considered vital to which party controls Congress. Additionally, Missouri had a ballot measure, Missouri Amendment Two, regarding stem cell research that drew national attention as an indicator of mainstream sentiment towards this controversial issue. On Election Day 2006, both McCaskill and Amendment 2 narrowly received majority support among Missouri voters. The victories of McCaskill and five other Democratic colleagues allowed their party to regain power in the U.S. Senate.
During the 2008 presidential election, some analysts and correspondents said Missouri shows the ideological ranges for each party (e.g., liberal and moderate Democrats, evangelicals, etc.). In the primaries, the state voted for the presidential candidates who eventually secured their parties' nomination: John McCain (Republican) and Barack Obama (Democratic).
Read more about this topic: Missouri Bellwether
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“Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)