Politics

To keep things simple: Missouri Republicans had a banner night.

And Missouri Democrats are still in the political wilderness.

Buoyed by President Donald Trump’s popularity in the state, GOP candidates up and down the ballot won pivotal races. They also emerged victorious on Amendment 3, which repealed the Clean Missouri redistricting system.

To delve a bit deeper, here are the answers to the 11 questions I posed earlier in the week:

Republican Gov. Mike Parson defeated State Auditor Nicole Galloway on Tuesday to win a full term as Missouri’s chief executive.

Parson led a Republican sweep of statewide offices as Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick all kept their positions. An amendment to put term limits on those positions failed.

As Parson often stressed on the campaign trail, he reiterated this was a critical election for the state in his victory speech on Tuesday.

Missouri voters on Tuesday reversed course from two years ago by passing Amendment 3, which scraps the Clean Missouri state legislative redistricting system.

Opponents of the measure, which had vastly outspent its backers, conceded shortly after midnight. With 98% of votes counted, the amendment was passing with 51%.

Eric Harris never thought about voting until he went to state prison.

While working in Tipton Correctional Facility’s law library, Harris began researching laws that led to his four-year sentence for assault in 2014 and the times he spent in jails on drug possession and gun charges.

After months of research, he realized he wanted to help change some of the laws that land many African Americans in prison. He said he wants former prisoners to have the right to vote immediately, which would allow them to vote for people who could change laws and to decide whom to prosecute.