Missouri Republicans Lost Ground Everywhere, Even Where They Won
Act for Missouri · November 10, 2026
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Compared with the last midterm in 2022, Republican candidates for the Missouri House drew 13% fewer votes this November, while Democratic candidates drew 29% more. Every one of the 96 House districts that both parties contested in 2024 and 2026 moved toward Democrats, by about 17.5 points on average. That was as true in deep-red rural districts as in the suburbs. Sixteen seats flipped because they were the only ones close enough to fall.
The same voters rejected five of the seven measures that came out of the Republican-led legislature this year: the income-tax swap, limits on initiative petitions, the abortion repeal, the sovereign wealth fund and the congressional map. The two that passed drew far less attention: an amendment requiring Jackson County to elect its assessor, and the sheriffs amendment, which squeaked by with 51%. Voters were judging the proposals, not just the party label.
We built this analysis from the Secretary of State's own numbers. We checked every House district's 2022 and 2024 results against the certified results, and the 2026 results against the Secretary of State's election-night site with every precinct reported. The 2026 numbers are unofficial until they are certified.
Every contested district moved the same direction
If a district had voted the same way both years, its dot would sit on the dashed line. Not one did. Every dot sits below the line, meaning the district moved toward Democrats. The smallest shift was about 6 points and the largest about 34.
The swing was not just a suburban story. Districts Republicans won by 30 points or more in 2024 moved about as much as the swing seats did (swing in percentage points of margin):
| 2024 result | Seats | Avg. swing to D | R votes vs. 2024 | D votes vs. 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D seat | 18 | 15.2 | −37% | −13% |
| R by 0–10 | 8 | 17.9 | −35% | −7% |
| R by 10–20 | 11 | 19.0 | −36% | −7% |
| R by 20–30 | 11 | 20.5 | −39% | −6% |
| R by 30+ | 48 | 17.2 | −41% | −8% |
Rural districts stayed Republican because they started 30 to 70 points ahead, not because they held firm. Rep. Israel Baeza of Sedalia (HD-52) won by 28 points, down from 49 in 2024. Rep. Matt Sergent (HD-57) won by 46, down from 62.
Republicans lost votes; Democrats mostly kept theirs
Midterms always draw fewer voters than presidential years, so some drop from 2024 was expected. What was not expected is who dropped off. In those 96 districts, Republican House candidates received 39.6% fewer votes than in 2024. Democratic candidates received only 8.9% fewer.
The fairer comparison is midterm to midterm. In the 54 districts both parties contested in 2022, 2024 and 2026, Republican votes fell 13% from 2022 while Democratic votes rose 29%. That is not ordinary midterm drop-off.
One caution: vote totals cannot tell a Republican who stayed home from one who crossed over and voted for the Democrat. Both look the same in the count. The size of the Republican drop points to many staying home, but these numbers alone cannot prove how many did each.
The seats that changed hands
Democrats flipped 16 House seats and lost none. In those 16 districts, Republican votes fell between 28% and 51% from 2024, while Democratic votes ranged from 17% lower to 2% higher. The biggest swing came in Jefferson City's HD-60, which went from a 25-point Republican win to a Democratic win by 189 votes.
- Kansas City area (7): HD-12 (Platte), HD-16 and HD-17 (Clay), HD-20, HD-30 and HD-31 (Jackson), HD-56 (Cass)
- St. Louis County (4): HD-94, HD-96, HD-100, HD-101
- St. Charles County (3): HD-104, HD-105, HD-106
- Springfield (1): HD-133
- Jefferson City (1): HD-60
In the Senate, Democrats Keri Ingle (District 8, eastern Jackson County) and Betsy Fogle (District 30, Springfield) won seats Republicans had long held. That leaves the House at 95 Republicans and 68 Democrats and the Senate at 22 to 12, ending a 14-year supermajority in both chambers.
Voters judged the proposals, one by one
Five of the seven measures that came from the legislature lost, four of them by more than 20 points. Those five were the year's most heavily promoted and debated proposals. The two that passed were lower-profile. Amendment 2, which passed the legislature without a single no vote, requires Jackson County to elect its assessor; it won with 77% in August. Amendment 8, sponsored by Republican Sen. Jill Carter, puts county sheriffs in the constitution; it passed with 51%. Amendment 6, the only citizen-initiated measure, passed with about 60%. Voters did not simply vote against everything with a Republican name on it. They weighed each proposal.
Republican lawmakers said much the same thing after the election. Rep. Jeff Vernetti called the night "a disaster" and said the party's messaging cost it 16 seats. Rep. Tim Taylor said the income-tax proposal hurt Republicans. Others pointed to the national environment, and that mattered too. Republicans lost ground across the country this year, and only 48% of likely Missouri voters approved of President Trump in an August poll. But a national wave does not explain why Missouri Republicans drew fewer votes than they did in the 2022 midterm.
Amendment 3: what the numbers show, and what we believe
Amendment 3 would have repealed the 2024 abortion-rights amendment and replaced it with language allowing abortion in cases of medical emergency, fetal anomaly, rape or incest. It also would have banned gender-transition treatment for minors. It lost 944,084 to 1,174,335, or 44.6% to 55.4%. The pro-life side drew about 499,000 fewer votes than it did in 2024, a 35% drop. The abortion-rights side drew about 364,000 fewer, a 24% drop.
What the numbers show. The 35% drop tracks the drop in Republican turnout generally. The Republican candidate for auditor received 39% fewer votes than President Trump did in 2024. The Yes vote on Amendment 3 equaled 89% of the Republican auditor's vote. In 2024, the pro-life vote equaled 82% of Trump's. Slightly more people voted on Amendment 3 than on the auditor race, so voters did not skip the question in large numbers. Most of the pro-life side's loss looks like the same Republican turnout decline seen everywhere on the ballot.
Polling shows real division among Republicans. In August, 65% of Republican likely voters supported Amendment 3 and 21% opposed it, according to the SLU/YouGov Poll. The poll did not ask why. Some of those Republicans may have opposed it because of the exceptions; others may have supported abortion rights.
What we believe. Act for Missouri opposed Amendment 3 because it wrote unequal protection into the constitution. It made a child's protection depend on the circumstances of conception or a diagnosis. We warned that many Christian conservatives could not vote for a measure that approved abortion for certain classes of children, and that a clean repeal of the 2024 amendment would have united pro-life voters. The vote totals cannot prove how many pro-life voters voted No or stayed home for that reason. That question deserves an honest answer. We will look for it in precinct results and post-election surveys, and we will report what we find either way.
What it means
Republicans still control the governorship, both chambers and every statewide office. But 17 House Republicans won by fewer than 10 points this year, so the 2028 battlefield is already wider than this one. Eight Democrats also won by fewer than 10 points, all of them in newly flipped seats.
The lesson is not that Missouri has changed parties. It is that voters, including Republican voters, will hold their own side accountable when it puts party priorities ahead of principle and ahead of the people's own decisions at the ballot box. That is a lesson for both parties. Voting on principle rather than party label is how citizens keep their representatives honest.
Find out how your own representative did. Use the legislator lookup at the top of this page, and follow our legislator tracker as the 2027 session begins.
About the data
House results for 2022 and 2024 come from the Missouri Secretary of State's certified results. 2026 results come from the Secretary of State's election-night results with all precincts reported; they are unofficial until certification. District comparisons count Republican and Democratic votes only; districts without both parties on the ballot are excluded from the swing calculations. Amendment 3's 2024 totals: Yes 1,538,659, No 1,443,022. Poll figures: SLU/YouGov Poll of 900 likely Missouri voters, August 2026.
Sources
- Missouri Secretary of State, election night results (Nov. 3, 2026)
- Missouri Secretary of State, certified results (2022, 2024)
- SLU/YouGov Poll, August 2026
- Missouri Independent/KCUR: "We've got to listen": Missouri Republicans confront fallout
- Missouri Independent/KCUR: Missouri Republicans suffer biggest electoral setback in a generation