Missouri Republicans are still peddling myths to justify axing the state's presidential primary

But the real reason there is no 2024 primary in the Show-Me state has little to do with binding delegates

Back at the end of the 2022 legislative session in the Missouri General Assembly, the state Senate foisted upon the state House at the last minute an omnibus elections bill that included a provision to eliminate the presidential primary in the Show-Me state. It happens.

The Senate adjourned, skipped town and left the members of the Missouri House with a tough decision as the clock wound down on the session: kill the bill that included elections provisions that the majority did like or pass the Senate version and eliminate the presidential primary (which some did not like). A majority of the state House chose the latter, nixing the presidential primary in the process.

And all of this is public knowledge, of course, because Missouri legislators returned for the 2023 General Assembly session and made it known. Members of the state House made it known that they had to swallow the poison pill presidential primary provision in 2022 as they filed legislation in 2023 to revive the presidential primary. And it was during consideration of that legislation that a subset of Republicans in and out of the legislature resurrected a pair of strawman arguments that probably obscure the true reason for their opposition to a presidential primary in Missouri.

Now, following the failure of that push and with 2024 approaching, Missouri elected officials are trying to explain to voters why there is no presidential primary. And some of them are falling back on those same strawmen from before, strawmen that are no more right than they were in 2022 or earlier this year. At its core, the whole argument is disingenuous. Here is why.