Hopping back on the Missouri presidential primary merry-go-round
A newly amended bill in Jefferson City would bring the primary back to the Show-Me state and shake up Missouri's delegate selection/allocation process along the way
Related at FHQ:
Missouri House Elections Committee reports amended Super Tuesday primary bill “do pass”
It seems the presidential primary is an issue that will not die in Missouri.
Even before the primary in the Show-Me state was eliminated in the waning days of the 2022 legislative session in Jefferson City, there were attempts to repeal the statute. And since that omnibus elections bill became law, there has been a parade of legislation to bring the presidential preference election back. By FHQ’s count there have been 19 bills since the 2023 legislative session that were either introduced with or, at some point during the legislative process, contained a provision reestablishing a state-run presidential primary in Missouri.
To dredge up some of the language from my research, there has been no lack of willingness to resurrect the presidential primary. However, there has not been an ability to bring about that outcome.
Not yet anyway. Up to this point four years on since the elimination of the primary, all 19 of those presidential primary bills have failed. Two have passed the House along the way but were subsequently stymied in the state Senate. Another got a floor vote in the House, but enough Democrats voted present on the final vote to tank the legislation despite more overall votes in favor of passage.1 Of the remainder, some were merged with other similar legislation, others managed to navigate out of committee with instructions to pass them and another set died quieter deaths, bottled up at the committee stage. And technically, there are two bills still active during the ongoing 2026 session.
Regardless of where any of these bills end up, the roadblocks are seemingly always the same.
There is a formidable enough faction within the Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly in Jefferson City that sees the presidential primary as a “dog and pony show,” a beauty contest. As a result, that faction constantly derails most efforts to restore the primary. And those folks are not wrong. Well, they would not have been wrong if this was a debate held in 2011 or 2013 and not 2026.
FHQ does not choose those past dates at random. There is definitely a before and after to the 2012 cycle for Missouri Republicans. It was a formative cycle for some and continues to have repercussions for the politics around the presidential primary in the Show-Me state.
Below the fold, FHQ will have a look at the legacy of 2012 in Missouri, how primary proponents are attempting to compromise with the filibustering faction and the implications of the current legislation for 2028 (if one assumes passage and the governor’s signature).
Let’s dig in…