Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Missouri State Senate Breakdown

Seventeen seats in the 34-member Missouri State Senate will be up for grabs this November.  Republicans currently have 23 Senate seats and Democrats have just 11 seats.  Using the same analysis I used for the Missouri House (see yesterday's post), I see absolutely no chance of Democrats coming anywhere near a Senate majority this November.

Of the 17 Senate seats that are not up for election this year, 13 are held by Republicans and only 4 are held by Democrats.  Additionally, 7 of the Senate seats up for election this fall are "Safe Republican" seats where the GOP candidate is either unopposed, faces only minor party competition, or represents a district so heavily Republican that the Democratic candidate has no chance to win.  This means that Republicans are virtually guaranteed to have at a bare minimum 20 Senate seats after the November election.  Conversely, only 3 seats up for grabs this November are "Safe Democrat" seats.

According to my prognostications, there are only 7 competitive Missouri Senate races this cycle.  Of these seven, four are seats currently held by Democrats and three are seats currently held by Republicans.  Here is a look at those 7 races.

22nd District: Leans Democrat
Sen. Ryan McKenna (D)
Greg Zotta (R)

24th District: Leans Democrat
Barbara Fraser (D)
John Lamping (R)

16th District: Toss-Up
Sen. Frank Barnitz (D)
Dan Brown (R)

18th District: Toss-Up
Sen. Wes Shoemyer (D)
Brian Munzlinger (R)

34th District: Leans Republican
Rob Schaaf (R)
Martin Rucker (D)

2nd District: Likely Republican
Sen. Scott Rupp (R)
Don Crozier (D)

30th District: Likely Republican
Bob Dixon (R)
Michael Hoeman (D)

I will profile each of these 7 races more in depth in the coming weeks.

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