"Show Me"

Polls are polls but votes are what win elections. I have been waiting for the Missouri primaries to see if all the indicators in the polling data over the past year are bearing fruit. One thing that most polls can't show and only polls like Rasmussen even attempt to account for is, despite what people may think and say, what will they actually do.

Missouri is a good case study of what is likely to come.  Although McCain won in Missouri in 2008 it was razor thin, in fact it wasn't until weeks after the election that it was determined that McCain had actually won Missouri's electoral votes, it was that close. Gallup shows Missouri with a plus 11 Democratic party affiliation, pretty much in the middle. Missouri like Florida and Ohio is considered a bellwether state, a purple state it can go either way



 Although neither of the Senate primaries, Republican or Democrat, were all that competitive the two leading candidates won going away, the turnout what was important. The key question in the primary was what was the enthusiasm of the respective parties represented by who actually showed up to the polls.
 
Democratic candidates received 315,787 votes in the primary. Republican candidates however received 577,612. Missouri has open primaries which means that not only could Independents vote, but voters could cross party lines with their vote. Remember there are more registered Democrats in Missouri than Republicans. Obviously the "Show Me" State is showing a a high degree of enthusiasm for  Republicans over Democrats. But really this is not as important as the second state wide issue on the ballot.
 
Missourians voted on a referendum (Proposition C) that basically says "we don't want Obamacare in Missouri".  It  would exempt Missouri from the personal mandate portion of Obamacare, basically gutting it.
 
Not only did Missourians express a preference to "opt out" of Obamacare by a margin of  71.1% to 28.9%, more people actually voted on the issue of Obamacare than had a preference in the Senate primary. Which means the enthusiasm against Obamacare was greater than who was the Senate candidates. A total of 898,784 voters voted in the state wide primaries for Senate for all candidates but 938,782  voted on Proposition C. Perhaps even more telling is that more people voted for Democratic candidates (315,787) than voted for Obamacare (271,102). Obviously enthusiasm against Obamacare cuts across party lines and is very intense, perhaps more intense than even typical polling shows.
 
The "Show Me" State showed last night that not only do Democrats have some deep troubles brewing come November, Obamacare is deeply divisive and unpopular.