Ozarks 2024 Presidential Election Review
Author’s Note: All other election reviews can be found here.
This portion of the 2024 Election Compendium focuses on three states in a region I am referring to as “Ozarks” – Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Outcomes
Arkansas Trump +31.6%
Missouri Trump +18.4%
Oklahoma Trump +34.3%
Arkansas Trump by minimum of 30.0%
Missouri Trump by minimum of 18.0%
Oklahoma Trump by minimum of 36.0%
Preface
The Ozarks, like the Great Plains, Deep South, Upper Rockies, and Appalachia, is an impenetrably strong Trump region. None of these states have been won by a 21st century Democrat presidential nominee, though Barack Obama nearly picked off Missouri in his 2008 win when the state was still shedding the same “blue dog” tendencies that sent its (and Arkansas’) electors to Bill Clinton twice.
If anything, this region can demonstrate the power of the sustained political trend. After backing Clinton twice in the 1990s, Missouri had these margins:
· 2000 Bush +3.3%
· 2004 Bush +7.2%
· 2008 McCain +0.1% (+3,903)
· 2012 Romney +9.4%
· 2016 Trump +18.5%
· 2020 Trump +15.4%
· 2024 Trump +18.4%
Trump has a higher share of Missouri’s vote in 2024 than he did in 2016 despite the margin being higher in the latter, largely because Clinton suffered more at the hands of third-party voters than he did, and possibly due to advancements in ballot collection by Democrats; either way, Missouri was once a true battleground state that is now an afterthought. With clean elections, even states like Pennsylvania or Wisconsin can dramatically shift in their levels of partisan support.
Only one state of these three, Oklahoma, registers voters by party, and it moved heavily Republican as a whole and in all 77 counties:
· Oklahoma from R+16.8% in 2020 to R+25.3% in 2024
Analysis
OKLAHOMA
· All 77 counties in Oklahoma showed a registration shift favoring the Republican Party, including Oklahoma and Tulsa Counties, the two largest in the state. 19 counties had a Democrat registration advantage in 2020, but there are now none remaining. Since 2021, Oklahoma removed 453,500 voter registrations for a variety of reasons. Here is the county breakdown:
· 58 of 77 counties in Oklahoma became more Republican as a percentage margin of victory for Trump, meaning the registration index was 75.3% accurate as a predictor for county trajectory by percentage margin. Trump won only 50 of 77 counties by a higher raw vote margin than he did in 2020. See county results below:
· Trump underperformed his 2020 ballot count in 37 counties, although he gained 15,933 votes statewide net since four years ago. In many counties that drifted left by percentage margin and/or raw vote margin despite the registration shifts, the victory margins were in excess of 70 points, meaning a slight shift in raw vote, often caused by depopulation, can alter the trajectory of the county with greater ease. Most of eastern Oklahoma, which had many counties with a Democrat registration advantage as recently as 2020, had a Republican shift in margin, while most counties that shifted Democrat as a matter of technicality were in the far western portion of the state.
· Trump improved slightly in Oklahoma County, which nearly flipped to Biden in 2020, and lost 0.4% of margin in Tulsa County despite a GOP registration shift. Those two counties, plus Cleveland County (home to the University of Oklahoma and Norman), were the three most disparate counties of the 2020 election based on historical trend and voter registration data. Harris had fewer ballots than Biden in Oklahoma County and Cleveland County this cycle. Canadian County, which is a fast-growing suburban county just west of Oklahoma City, had the highest Democrat ballot gain (+4,296) of the entire three-state Ozarks Region.
· No Republican presidential nominee has lost a county in Oklahoma since George W. Bush in 2000.
MISSOURI
· With a Trump wipeout of Harris on the move, Missouri saw 109 of its 115 counties (94.8%) improve for Trump in percentage margin of victory or defeat. Trump won the same 111 counties in each of his three races, with his Democrat opponents winning Jackson, Boone, and St. Louis Counties, along with the independent city of St. Louis.
· None of the six counties shifting Democrat in percentage margin shifted by more than 1.0%. St. Charles County, one of the most disparate counties (based on political trend) from 2020, added 2,450 Democrat presidential ballots since the 2020 election. In the other 30 counties in which Harris gained over Biden, the gains were often miniscule and occurred in counties not flagged for likelihood of manipulation in the 2020 race.
· In the independent city of St. Louis, Harris dropped 15,631 ballots from Biden’s column and finished with the lowest Democrat ballot count there since 1996. This decline was due to sagging turnout with primarily black men and was aided by the steady depopulation of the city, which has been ongoing since the 1950s. Harris also declined in Jackson County, which contains the Missouri portion of the Kansas City metro, by 12,416 ballots.
· Absent major inroads in St. Louis (city) or Jackson County, Missouri appears to max out around a 20% margin for Republican candidates statewide. With Harris lagging Biden by 52,415 statewide, it appears there was no concentrated effort to manipulate the 2024 election results beyond any potential foul play present in the 2020 race.
ARKANSAS
· Harris was crushed in Arkansas, dropping 27,028 of Biden’s ballot count and watching 94 of 95 (98.9%) counties become more Republican (or less Democrat) by percentage margin. Saline County, which lies just west of Little Rock, is the only county that shifted left (by 1.1%), and it was still won by Trump by 40.2%.
· Trump flipped Desha County, which lies along the Mississippi River, for the first GOP presidential win there since 1972, and was within hundreds of votes in several other counties of pulling off more rare flips. Harris won just seven counties statewide.
· Harris lost slight ground in Pulaski County, which contains core Little Rock, dropping 9,909 of Biden’s 2020 ballot count, suggesting likely ballot stuffing activities in the 2020 race did occur. Her best county for gains, out of just three in which she added ballots, was Benton County, in Arkansas’ far northwestern corner. That gain was +2,982, one of just three Grade 2 gains (+2,000-5,999 ballots) in the Ozarks region. The Northwest Arkansas region is increasing drastically in population, and while her gain this year dramatically lags Biden’s gain of +14,244 in 2020, the two-cycle Democrat gain of +17,226 took from 1988 through 2016 to achieve previously.
· The three-cycle contrast map of the region is above. Harris added ballots in 57 out of 287 counties in this region (19.9%), which were some of the cleaner counties in the 2020 election relative to the rest of the nation. She lagged Biden in every state, and substantially in Arkansas and Missouri. Trump expanded his overall winning margin in the Ozarks region by +131,510 net, and most substantially in Missouri, with little to no suggestion of coordinated election manipulation or any prominent stolen seats:
Opportunities for Election Manipulation
Here is how these three states rank with regard to my most commonly assessed demerits.
· Voter ID – All three states require photo ID.
· Same Day Registration – None of these states permit same day voter registration.
· Ballot Harvesting – All three states have reasonable laws discouraging ballot harvesting, and none have excessive absentee or mail-in balloting.
· Ranked Choice Voting – Not present in any of these states.
· Automatic Voter Registration – None of these states operate AVR.
The Pathway Ahead
All three states will remain reliable Republican presidential, U.S. Senate, and statewide states for decades, if not longer. There is no foreseeable political realignment in which any of them would change their stripes. These states all rely on energy production and agriculture, hold heavily conservative social views, and lack dominant Democrat urban areas that could swell to the point of jeopardizing the political demeanor of any of the three.
The key for election integrity advocates in these states, of which there are many committed ones (John Bailey, Will Huff, Conrad Reynolds, and Wendi Dial, to name just a handful) is to ensure no terrible election ideas enter committees or legislative chambers, nor onto ballots in the form of measures. Arkansas’ election gurus have succeeded in persuading many counties to begin the process of decoupling from the use of electronic voting systems and returning to primitive methods of tabulating ballots, which is a major step in the right direction for providing transparency in these races. All three states offer opportunity, with their statewide victories secure, to experiment on winning urban voters in what could catch on as a nationwide lesson learned that can be replicated in battleground states.
Final Grades and Closing Commentary
There appears to be no concentrated effort to manipulate election results in any of these states beyond any manipulated results present in the 2020 election results. While Oklahoma’s registration numbers were only predictive in three-quarters of the counties, the minute details within those shifts don’t reveal obvious malfeasance.
The Top 5 Election Integrity Targets in the Ozarks are (in no order):
· Benton County, AR
· Oklahoma County, OK
· Tulsa County, OK
· Jackson County, MO
· St. Charles County, MO
Most Suspect Outcome
· none
Arkansas receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.
Missouri receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.
Oklahoma receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.
Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.
Now to bring the rest of the country, especially the Blue shitholes, to this level of election integrity!
Harris gaining votes over Biden in large swaths of Missouri and Oklahoma in particular? Sorry, but respectfully not buying it…..