“It was a good day to be an incumbent,” said County Clerk Ken Waller.
In final, unofficial results, all incumbents for county government posts breezed to victory, as Assessor Bob Boyer, Public Administrator Steve Farmer and Council members Charles Groeteke (District 4) and Dan Stallman (District 6) all won their Republican Party primaries.
None will face a Democratic opponent in November, so barring a miraculous charge by a write-in candidate, all will be sworn into new four-year terms.
“COVID had something to do with the margins,” Waller said. “I’m not saying that the incumbents wouldn’t have won regardless, but the challengers couldn’t get out and campaign. I think that led to the landslide numbers.”
Groeteke and Farmer both garnered 65 percent of the votes in their races, Stallman had 63 percent and Boyer 59 percent.
The power of incumbency also worked in favor of Rob Vescovo, who won his Republican primary for District 112 in the Missouri House of Representatives by attracting almost 79 percent of the vote.
Waller suggested that name recognition played a part in the race for the District 3 seat in the Missouri Senate.
Elaine Freeman Gannon defeated Kent Scism and Joshua Barrett in the Republican primary to succeed Gary Romine, who left the seat open in January after he accepted a job with the State Tax Commission.
“She wasn’t a true incumbent because it was an open seat, but I think voters perceived her that way because she had served eight years in the state House,” Waller said.
In the U.S. House race for District 3, incumbent Blaine Luetkemeyer easily overtook four Republican challengers. In November, he will face Democratic challenger Megan Rezabek of Imperial, as well as Libertarian candidate Leonard J. Steinman II, who ran unopposed on Tuesday.
Turnout was about as Waller predicted, with 27 percent of the county’s registered voters either showing up at the polls or casting absentee or mail-in ballots.
“I didn’t know whether it would be as low as 25 percent or as high as 30,” he said. “I figured the swing would be because of the Medicaid issue.”
Jefferson County voters turned thumbs-down to Constitutional Amendment No. 2, which would have expanded Medicaid coverage in Missouri, with 46.26 percent voting for the issue and 53.74 percent voting no.
Statewide, the measure passed, 53.25 percent to 46.75 percent.
Tuesday's turnout was far off the pace of the 37.94 percent in the most recent August primary election, in 2018.
Waller said Tuesday’s election had a distinctive pace.
“Unlike many elections, where there are peaks, like the first two hours (from 6-8 a.m.) and the last three hours (4-7 p.m.), today was pretty steady, with about 2 percent of the voters checking in (at their precincts) every hour, on average,” Waller said.
Not counting military absentee ballots, the County Clerk’s Office had counted 5,753 absentee and mail-in ballots, or 3.7 percent of the registered voter pool in Tuesday’s election.
That’s the largest show of ballots that weren’t cast in person at the polls in the last six August primary elections; 2.3 percent cast absentee ballots in 2018.
In St. Louis County, about 12.71 percent of the voters chose the absentee or mail-in option on Tuesday.
Waller, who said his office hired four workers to process the absentee and mail-in ballots this time around, predicted a deluge for November’s general election.
“I’ll guess we’ll have to add another four to six on top of the four we had for this election,” Waller said.
He said all went smoothly at the polls on Tuesday.
“Our poll workers were well trained, and I told them that everything that we did in June (for the April municipal election that was postponed to June 2), we’ll just do again, only this time we’ll have two or three times as many people. Now, we’ll just have to turn around and do it again in November, for at least double the number of voters today.”
Here are final, unofficial results from Tuesday's election. Winners in bold. Incumbents listed with an (I). Ballot issues required a simple majority for passage.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 2
(Medicaid expansion)
Yes 672,967 53.25%
No 590,809 46.75%
EUREKA PROPOSITION S
(Water, sewer system sale)
Yes 2,259 66.76%
No 1,125 33.24%
STATE SENATE
District 3
Republicans
Kent Scism 5,428 21.50%
Joshua Barrett 9,194 36.41%
Elaine Freeman Gannon 10,630 42.01%
STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
District 112
Republicans
Rob Vescovo (1) 3,201 78.82%
Chad Bicknell 860 21.18%
District 115
Republicans
Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway 2,399 52.32%
Marvin Fricke 467 10.18%
Ryan Jones 1,719 37.49%
JEFFERSON COUNTY COUNCIL
District 4
Republicans
Charles Groeteke (I) 2,429 65.19%
Trisha Cardona Fribis 1,297 34.81%
District 6
Republicans
Dan Stallman (I) 2,468 62.96%
David Collins 1,452 37.04%
ASSESSOR
Republicans
Bob Boyer (I) 14,265 58.93%
Mary Dunnegan 9,940 41.07%
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR
Republicans
Steve Farmer (I) 14,876 65.76%
Jason C. Jarvis 7,745 34.24%
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
District 3
Republicans
Brandon Wilkinson 15,894 17.76%
Adela Wisdom 3,483 3.24%
Blaine Luetkemeyer (I) 80,585 74.84%
Jeffrey Nowak 3,517 3.27%
Lynette Trares 4,193 3.89%
Democrats
Megan Rezabek 27,809 66.85%
Dennis Oglesby 13,789 33.15%
REPUBLICAN PARTY COMMITTEEPERSONS
Arnold Township Committeeman
Jason Fulbright (I) 1,283 63.39%
Karl J. Schoenbeck 732 36.17%
Arnold Township Committeewoman
Tammy Fulbright (I) 1,387 68.33%
Doris Borgelt 633 31.18%
Central Township Committeeman
John R. Gebel (I) 575 33.08%
Dan D. McCarthy 1,154 66.40%
High Ridge Township Committeeman
Darron Forrest 1,306 60.06%
Jordan Henry 675 39.13%
High Ridge Township Committeewoman
Susan (Suzy) Davis 1,316 73.40%
Edith Henry 468 26.10%
Imperial Township Committeeman
Jim Berberich (I) 1,336 51.62%
Tim Rorabacher 840 32.46%
Douglas E. Poss 400 15.46%
Imperial Township Committeewoman
Diane Berberich (I) 1,799 69.65%
Tonia R. Lovelace-Poss 774 29.97%
Joachim Township Committeeman
George "Bob" Engelbach (I) 1,522 69.31%
Tony Pousosa 663 30.19%
Joachim Township Committeewoman
Janet Engelbach (I) 1,211 55.73%
Kelsi Hollandsworth 956 43.99%
Meramec Township Committeeman
Don Bickowski 818 40.04%
Derrick R. Good (I) 1,213 59.37%
Meramec Township Committeewoman
Connie Combs 920 43.64%
Mary Dunnegan 1,180 55.98%
Plattin Township Committeewoman
Cynthia S. Higgins 738 49.17%
Teresa "Terri" Kreitler (I) 754 50.23%
Riverview Township Committeewoman
Jane Bollinger (I) 1,110 74.05%
Carol S. Boyster 380 25.35%
Rock Township Committeeman
Bill Alter (I) 1,463 56.86%
Alan Leaderbrand 1,096 42.60%
Rock Township Committeewoman
Angela Alter-Wren (I) 1,402 55.99%
Desiree McClelland 1,095 43.73%
Valle Township Committeeman
Dan Stallman (I) 1,052 56.53%
David Collins 797 42.83%
Windsor Township Committeeman
David Day (I) 904 48.50%
Tony Dorsett 951 51.02%
Windsor Township Committeewoman
Whendy Moore 789 42.40%
Sharon L. Swan 1,064 57.17%