08/06/2008

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER  / Associated Press

Former state tourism director Blaine Luetkemeyer decisively defeated his top Republican rival and three other GOP challengers in the party primary to succeed Kenny Hulshof in Congress.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, unofficial results show Luetkemeyer ahead of state Rep. Bob Onder by nearly 5,000 votes, 39 percent to 30 percent.

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Judy Baker of Columbia surged ahead of Steve Gaw, a former state House speaker and Public Service Commission chairman, by nearly 3,700 votes. The remaining precincts to be tallied are all located in Boone County — a locale where she has already collected more than five times as many votes, according to partial returns.

Luetkemeyer, a St. Elizabeth cattle farmer and insurance company owner who also served in the Legislature, credited his unexpectedly wide margin of victory to name recognition and experience from an unsuccessful campaign for state treasurer in 2004. He lost the Republican primary to eventual winner Sarah Steelman.

In a brief interview from his Columbia campaign headquarters, Luetkemeyer said he hoped to get elected in November by relying on the "Kenny Hulshof mold of conservatism." He credited district voters for rejecting what he called a negative primary campaign fueled by Onder, who outspent Luetkemeyer and relied in part on a campaign by the Washington-based Club for Growth political action committee.

"My numbers went up as he got more negative," Luetkemeyer said. "The people of central Missouri came out and voted against these types of tactics."

The district's current occupant, 12-year incumbent Hulshof, who won the GOP nomination for governor Tuesday.

The sprawling 9th district covers a 25-county stretch of Missouri that includes Columbia, Hannibal, Kirksville, Hermann, Franklin County, western St. Charles County and part of Lake of the Ozarks.

In the 6th Congressional District, former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes easily defeated Ali Allon Sherkat, collecting 85 percent of the vote in the two-person Democratic primary. Barnes will face Republican incumbent Rep. Sam Graves in November.

A Democrat hasn't served in the 9th since 1996, the year Hulshof defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Harold Volkmer.

With Missouri likely facing the loss of one of its nine congressional seats when districts are redrawn after the 2010 Census, time may be short for the next 9th district representative.

Four years from now, that incumbent — or the winner of the 2010 election — could be facing a run against a more senior member of Congress from elsewhere in the state.

Primary contests are also on the ballot in five of the state's seven other congressional districts. The elections will determine who challenges Republican incumbents Todd Akin and Roy Blunt, and Democratic incumbents Russ Carnahan, Emanuel Cleaver II and Ike Skelton in the November general election.