Missouri Republican Gubernatorial Candidates Debate Tonight

The four candidates for the Republican nomination for Missouri governor will debate for an hour tonight. They also debated last month — see Watch full video of the debate between Republican Missouri Governor’s candidates.

In the non-scientific Sunday Poll, readers thought Lt Gov Peter Kinder is most likely to win the GOP primary next month:

Q: Which Republican candidate for Missouri Governor do you THINK will win the August 2nd primary?

1. Peter D. Kinder 16 [38.1%]
2. TIE 8 19.05%
   1. Catherine Hanaway
   2. John Brunner
3. TIE  5 [11.9%]
   1. Eric Greitens
   2. Unsure/no opinion

Of the four, Kinder is the only one to have ever won a statewide race. Brunner lost the 2012 primary for U.S. Senate to Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin, Greitens has never run for public office before. In this poll nobody got a majority of votes, which may happen in the primary as well. An argument in favor of Ranked Choice Voting:

Ranked choice voting (RCV) makes democracy more fair and functional. It works in a variety of contexts. It is a simple change that can have a big impact.

With ranked choice voting, voters can rank as many candidates as they want in order of choice. Candidates do best when they attract a strong core of first-choice support while also reaching out for second and even third choices. When used as an “instant runoff” to elect a single candidate like a mayor or a governor, RCV helps elect a candidate that better reflects the support of a majority of voters. When used as a form of fair representation voting to elect more than one candidate like a city council, state legislature or even Congress, RCV helps to more fairly represent the full spectrum of voters. (FairVote.org)

For a look at all the candidates running, please see Ballotpedia’s Missouri gubernatorial election, 2016 page. Tonight’s debate will be broadcast in the St. Louis area on KMOV channel 4.1 from 7pm-8pm.

For a drinking game take a drink overtime one of them says any of the following ten words:

1. Conservative
2. Constitution
3. Family
4. Faith
5. Liberals
6. Obama
7. Outsider
8. Pro-Life
9. Second Amendment
10. Washington

Don’t play the drinking game if you’ll be driving afterwards.

— Steve Patterson