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Luetkemeyer, Baker win party nods in 9th district
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COLUMBIA, Mo. (Map, News) - Former Missouri tourism director Blaine Luetkemeyer and state lawmaker Judy Baker decisively won their respective party primaries Tuesday to emerge from a crowded 9th District field bidding to succeed Kenny Hulshof in Congress.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, unofficial results show Luetkemeyer topped state Rep. Bob Onder by more than 4,300 votes in the Republican primary, 39 percent to 30 percent. State Rep. Danie Moore finished in third place with 19 percent, followed by Brock Olivo and Dan Bishir.
On the Democratic side, Baker of Columbia defeated Steve Gaw, a former state House speaker and Public Service Commission chairman, by nearly 3,700 votes, or 42 percent to 33 percent. Marion County commissioner Lyndon Bode earned 14 percent of votes, followed by former state lawmaker Ken Jacob with 11 percent.
In Boone County alone, Baker collected more than five times as many votes as Gaw, according to partial returns. With results from nearly half of the county's 90 precincts still unknown, her home county accounted for a cushion of 4,450 votes.
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 with rejecting what he called a negative primary campaign fueled by Onder, who had a fundraising advantage and relied in part on negative campaigning 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, won the GOP nomination for governor Tuesday.
With four years in Jefferson City, Baker had the least political experience among the four Democrats. Gaw, for instance, spent 10 years in the state House and another seven on the state utilities commission.
Bode has been a county commissioner for 14 years, while Jacob spent a total of 22 years in the state House and Senate and even served on the Columbia school board.
Baker said her relative political inexperience wasn't an issue for district voters. She instead emphasized a 25-year career in the health care industry.
"Voters are looking for change. They're tired of the old politics," she said. "This election is a rejection of that."
Despite the decisive advantage she enjoyed in Boone County, Baker said she was most proud of her performance in the district's rural communities, including a win in neighboring Callaway County, where Gaw lives.
The sprawling 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.
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 face a run against a more senior member of Congress from elsewhere in the state.
In other Congressional primaries, 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.
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