Republicans in Missouri will voice their preference on whom they want to represent the GOP in November across the state on Saturday.
On March 2, the Missouri Republican Party will host caucuses in all 114 of the state’s counties and St. Louis City. The caucus will begin the three-step process of assigning delegates that will ultimately support one candidate at the RNC Convention in Milwaukee in July.
Missouri Republican Party Chairman Nick Myers told The Epoch Times all of the caucuses will begin at the same time, 10 a.m. Central Standard Time, and they should last for a number of hours. At the events, caucusgoers will participate in a presidential preference poll where they move to one side of the room or the other to indicate their allegiance. A candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to win the caucus.
Missouri does not require voters to register with a party, so any registered voter who is willing to sign a pledge that they are a “strong and faithful Republican” is allowed to participate.
Like the famous event in Iowa, short nomination speeches will precede the voting. After a vote is taken, the assembly will consider a statewide Republican Party policy platform and consider matters of import to the county parties, like nominating and voting for officers for the coming year.
Once the caucuses are done, it will be up to the county parties to report their results back to the state party based in Jefferson City, Missouri. An announcement will likely be made at around 5 or 6 p.m. Central Standard Time.
In an interview, Mr. Myers said this is not the first time the state’s GOP has caucused, but it is the first time it’s done it without a state-run presidential preference primary.
In 2022, the Missouri General Assembly passed an election integrity bill that removed the 2024 primary. He said both he and his Democratic Party counterpart asked the legislature to restore the primary, but it didn’t happen in time for the 2024 event.
At this point in the GOP’s presidential primary race, it all but certain that former President Donald Trump will secure the nomination. He won every contest since the Republican Party of Iowa’s Caucus in January.
Now, the only registered candidates Republicans can consider are the former president, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, and longshot candidate David Stuckenberg, a Texas Air National Guardsman.
In terms of presidential politics, Missouri has been a solidly Republican state for a generation. It last voted Democrat when it supported President Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election. It voted for President Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
With the comparative lack of drama, none of the major candidates chose to come to Missouri ahead of the caucus.
Mr. Myers said a Trump surrogate, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican who’s endorsed President Trump, recently spoke on the former president’s behalf at the Missouri Republican Party’s Lincoln Days event in Kansas City in February.
Other Republican leaders in county GOP organizations expressed some frustration about the lack of attention from President Trump and Ms. Haley.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Gary Smedile, chairman of the Clay County Republicans, said the state party set the event ahead of Super Tuesday with the hope that the race would still be competitive ahead of the caucus. Clay County, in the northwest corner of the state near Kansas City, Missouri, is the 6th most populous county in the state, according to data maintained by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC).
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Mark Jones, chairman of the Jackson County Republican Party, said he “didn’t care” about Ms. Haley not coming to Missouri. Still, he was disappointed to see President Trump skip out.
Mr. Jones said he understands, however, since Missouri’s 10 votes in the electoral college are safely in Republican hands. Jackson County, which encompasses much of Kansas City, Missouri, is the second most populous county in the state, according to MERIC.
Both Mr. Smedile and Mr. Jones said the caucuses are worthwhile even if they may not be the most crucial event in the nation. The county parties see the caucus as an opportunity to connect, generate voting lists for the coming elections in the fall, and introduce down-ballot candidates to loyal Republican voters.
Mr. Smedile said his caucus will include nominations for all three of the candidates running. He will give people three minutes to speak on behalf of their candidate. Mr. Jones said he will only entertain a nomination for President Trump.
Mr. Smedile declined to share his projection for the statewide caucus. However, he did say he “would be very surprised” if President Trump didn’t have a strong showing on Saturday.
Mr. Jones projected a win for President Trump, saying he doesn’t know many members of his party who aren’t “MAGA people.”
“If we don’t have him, we have no country,” Mr. Jones told The Epoch Times. “We are not a free country without Trump.”
Mr. Myers didn’t project a winner, either.
“I expect an orderly caucus that will express the will of the active, grassroots Republicans who attend.”
