Editing Missouri (section)

===Former status as a political bellwether===
{{Main|Missouri bellwether}}
{{further|Political party strength in Missouri}}
[[File:Missouri Presidential Election Results 2024.svg|thumb|2024 United States presidential election results by county {{leftlegend|#4389E3|Democratic}}{{leftlegend|#AA0000|Republican}}]]

Prior to 2008, Missouri had been widely regarded as a bellwether in American politics, often making it a [[swing state]]. The state had a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having voted for the winning candidate in every election from 1904 to 2004 with a single exception: [[1956 United States presidential election|1956]] when Democratic candidate [[Adlai Stevenson II|Adlai Stevenson]] of neighboring Illinois lost the election despite carrying Missouri. However, since 2000, Missouri has always voted for the Republican Presidential candidate, with the last Democrat winning the state being [[1996 United States presidential election in Missouri|Bill Clinton in 1996]]. Missouri voted for [[John McCain]] and [[Mitt Romney]] over Democrat [[Barack Obama]] of neighboring Illinois, despite Obama being elected to the Presidency in both 2008 and 2012. Missouri voted for [[Mitt Romney]] by nearly 10% in 2012 and voted for [[Donald Trump]] by over 18% in 2016 and 2024, and 15% in 2020.

On October 24, 2012, there were 4,190,936 registered voters.<ref name="registered">{{cite web |url=http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/registeredvoters.asp?rvmID=0012 |title=Registered Voters in Missouri 2012 |publisher=Missouri Secretary of State |date=October 24, 2012 |access-date=October 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025023240/http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/registeredvoters.asp?rvmID=0012 |archive-date=October 25, 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the state level, both Democratic Senator [[Claire McCaskill]] and Democratic Governor [[Jay Nixon]] were re-elected.

On November 3, 2020, there were 4,318,758 registered voters, with 3,026,028 voting (70.1%).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/ElectionResultStatistics/Nov2020OfficialVoterTurnout.pdf |title=Voter Turnout Report: 2020 General Election |publisher=Missouri Secretary of State |date=December 8, 2020 |access-date=June 14, 2021 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>  By this time, the state had favored more Republican candidates for federal offices.  The offices held by Democratic party officials a decade before were subsequently held by Republican Senator [[Josh Hawley]] and Republican Governor [[Mike Parson]].

Missouri's accuracy rate for the last 29 presidential elections is now 89.66%. This percentage is on par with that of Ohio, which has voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1896, except in [[1944 United States presidential election|1944]], [[1960 United States presidential election|1960]] and [[2020 United States presidential election|2020]].