Talk Elections

He received a lower % in MO than any Midwestern state except MN, even lower than in IL. I would have thought there would have been more social conservatives in MO than in most other Midwestern states who would have stuck with his campaign.

Bubba was one of them.  He did exceptionally well for a D in the Ozarks and other adjacent counties to AR

MO was more Democratic then.  It was also a strong Perot state.

In addition to MO, there would be a lot of other states (AR, KY, TN, WV) that would be more Democratic today if the party hasn't taken such a left turn 20 years ago.   In addition to the loss of electoral votes, that's ten Senate seats gone.  And becomes that much harder for the Democrats to control the Senate (which BTW confirms nominees for the Supreme Court) on a long term basis.

The Recession hit the state hard.

The Farm crisis also hammered the state before that.

The 1980's GOP was really centered on making life better for the suburbs with lower taxes and indirectly cheaper commodities. The latter made life hell for farming, mining and extraction focused states leaving them as essentially "left behind" by the 1980's economy, which then got even worse when the whole economy went into recession.

As long as things were good though, Republicans did well in the suburban based states. Once that changed though, the Republicans had a problem in 1992 and Bill Clinton was able to appeal to both rural dissatisfaction and the suburbs.

While it's hard to remember today, Missouri was a crucial bellweather state for decades. Even after it began clearly tilting R Obama mustered up 49% here in 2008. Also note that Mel Carnahan won a landslide in his gubernatorial race, which must have helped Clinton, and seems to have helped Democrats eke out some thin margins in other downballot races.

Actually, as bad as Bush did, he wouldn't have hit even thirty percent if St Louis County had today's demographics.

However, wouldn’t Reagan’s and HW’s views on guns and abortion have helped them with rural voters?

In 1992, the Democrats didn't make guns and abortion the litmus tests they are today. 

Republican social issue focus through the late 1980's was still crime centric and thus suburban oriented in nature.

And Democrats were not anywhere near as alienating back then, plus you still had a lot of Greatest Generation Democrats alive and voting in these rural areas. The notion of a growing economy with rural America left behind is very reminiscent of what happened in the 1920's and that is the origin of the narrative that the "1991 Recession is the worst one since the Great Depression" that Democrats hammered precisely to achieve that kind of voting result in these areas.

It also should be remembered that 1992 is the election where the phrase, "Its the Economy, Stupid" originated.

Well wasn't MO a swing state at the time? I think that it would have just swung to Clinton by a large margin then anyways

Reagan was a pretty strong proponent of gun control

It borders Arkansas and much of MO is similar to Arkansas

Clinton was called Bubba for a reason. He was one of them. HW Bush was a Yankee from Connecticut. This is a big part of the reason why the Upper South loved him.

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Perot and Missouri's close proximity to Arkansas were likely the big factors in Bush's humiliating defeat in MO.

That is not why these states swung R. National Dems ran more left wing campaigns in the 1980s and 1970s than they do now, though perhaps that could change in the 2020s.