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The short version
About Missourians cast a ballot on August 4 — more than voted in any of the partisan primaries on the same ballot. They renewed a long-standing conservation tax and changed how Jackson County picks its assessor, and they rejected the two amendments that would have made the largest structural changes: a new hurdle for citizen initiative petitions, and a five-year phase-out of the state income tax.
Neither rejection was close. Amendment 4 failed by points and Amendment 5 by points. Both drew more total votes than either amendment that passed, so this was not a case of voters losing interest at the bottom of the ballot.
On the candidate side, Republicans cast roughly of the ballots in contested primaries statewide, only of legislative incumbents were beaten, and of the 180 legislative seats on the ballot are already settled because only one major party filed a candidate.
The four amendments
Every voter, regardless of which party ballot they chose, could vote on all four. Bars run out from the center line: green to the left is YES, gray to the right is NO.
Why the Amendment 4 and 5 margins stand out
Losing is one thing; losing by this much is another. Amendment 5 drew YES votes against NO votes — a margin of votes. Amendment 4 lost by .
Those numbers cannot be explained by partisan turnout alone, and the arithmetic is worth walking through. Amendment 5 drew NO votes. Only voters took a Democratic congressional ballot, took a Libertarian one, and at most more voted on the amendments without voting in any congressional primary at all. Even if every one of those voters opposed the measure, at least NO votes still had to come from people who took a Republican ballot — roughly of the Republican primary electorate.
The same floor for Amendment 4 is Republican NO votes, or . Neither measure was defeated by the other party; both were defeated with substantial Republican participation.
The participation numbers point the same way. Amendment 5 recorded total votes and Amendment 4 — both higher than Amendment 1 () and Amendment 2 (). Voters did not skip these; they sought them out.
Congress and statewide
Comparing the votes cast in each party's primary within a district is a rough gauge of relative enthusiasm, not a projection. Districts where the two parties came within 5 points of each other are highlighted.
The Legislature at a glance
All 163 Missouri House seats and 17 of 34 Senate seats were on the ballot.
What it means for November
Reasonable inferences from the results above, with the limits of primary data kept in view.
How to read these comparisons
Missouri holds an open primary: each voter picks one party's ballot. Comparing the total votes cast in each party's primary is therefore a measure of which side turned out in August — it is not a forecast of November. A district with a hotly contested race on one side and an unopposed candidate on the other will draw far more voters to the contested ballot regardless of how the district actually leans.
The amendment results are different, and stronger. All four appeared on every ballot and were decided outright on August 4. Those margins are final results, not indicators.
All figures on this page are calculated directly from Act for Missouri's results file and update automatically when it does. See the full race-by-race results or the detailed legislative breakdown.