Kehoe reflects on election night results after Democrats make gains

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Gov. Mike Kehoe said he needs to reflect on election night results and have "honest conversations" about politics.

"Taking real action on the policies that help families afford to pay their bills, improve the education of our children, and ensure our communities are safe matters much more than well-delivered lines in campaign commercials. These are the issues that matter most. These are the issues that our party can deliver on," Kehoe wrote in a Facebook post.

Missouri voters have turned down a few of Kehoe's policies this election season. In August, voters turned down an amendment to eliminate state income tax and an amendment to reform the intiative petition process to make it harder to pass citizen-led initiative petitions.

Tuesday, voters also rejected Proposition A, the "Missouri First" map that Kehoe called a special session for in September 2025 after President Donald Trump encouraged Missouri lawmakers to redistrict mid-decade.

The general election results yielded rejections of other Republican-backed ballot measures, including Amendment 3, which aimed at banning abortion, and Amendment 7, which would have created a public endowment to eliminate state income tax at some point. Voters approved the Democrat-backed Amendment 6, which makes it harder to overturn what voters approve through the intiative petition, or referendum process.

Republican state Rep. John Martin said the "blue wave" came from low Republican voter turnout.

"Unfortunately, the Republicans didn't turn out as strong as they did two years ago. I think that's attributed to just some of the challenges in our economy," Martin said.

Over the summer, many Republicans believed that the November election would have come out with seven Republicans and one Democrat elected to the U.S. House of Representatives under the 2025 congressional map. However, a referendum and court decisions from the Missouri and United States Supreme Courts mandated the use of the map passed in 2022.

The 2022 map was projected to have six Republicans and two Democrats, but Missouri voters in District 2 ousted long-standing Republican Ann Wagner for Democrat Fred Wellman.

"Now we get to keep going. Now we get to make change. Now we get to impact people's lives. Now we get to work for working people," Wellman told KMOV on election night.

Wagner has held the seat since 2014, and before her, Republican Todd Akin held the seat since 2000.

Political science professor at the University of Missouri, Charles Zug, said District 2 was an unexpected flip for Missouri.

"You see this happening across the country, by the way. Democrats are going to have a large majority in the House, and you don't get a large majority in the House without these kinds of one-offs," Zug said.

ABC News is projecting that Democrats will have a majority over Republicans in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver also kept his seat in District 5, which was targeted by Republicans under the 2025 congressional map. Now that Cleaver secured his spot in Congress, he told ABC 17 News that he is likely to hold a senior leadership position on the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance and the Helsinki Commission. The latter was created to prevent war.

Cleaver is the senior member of Missouri's representatives. He said he will have to gather the other members for a discussion over lunch once a month to discuss where they need each other's support.

Although Democrats will have a majority in both chambers, it could still be a struggle for them to get legislation passed because the president can veto it, Zug said. There are other things the party in control can do when the president is of a different party.

"Part of that is holding the president's administration, members of the president's government, high-ranking officials, all the way down to low-ranking officials, holding them accountable. The main lever of power Congress has for doing that is by withholding funding," Zug said.

Democrats in the Senate could also block Trump appointments to vacant positions in the administration or in federal court, Zug said. There is also the possibility of impeachment investigations.

That's something Martin doesn't want to see Democrats focus their energy on.

"I hope they don't spend their whole time trying to just impeach the president, but hope they're able to get some things done and lead out in our country," Martin said.