Wed morning 3rd District analysis: Just enough underinformed voters to carry the day. The credit/blame could belong to Russ' superficial endorsements from Planned Parenthood, PROMO and the St. Louis American, all of whom belonged in Jeff's camp but weren't.

As I noted might happen in a pre-election comment, Russ didn't win a single county, but he won the district by finishing a consistent 2nd everywhere (3rd in StL County). The casual, uninformed voter that I described many times helped Russ get over 22% in every jurisdiction.

Jeff won StL City and County, but was in single digits south of the Meramec. His mirror image was Stoll, who won Jefferson and Ste Gen big time but was in single digits in City and County. Favazza outhustled the unions and ward healers who endorsed Barry in the City, beating Joan there and probably costing her the victory.

Russ actually won it in Jefferson County, where his 22.3% 2nd place finish vs. Jeff's 8.2% 4th gave Russ a 4473 vote margin over the opponent that mattered (Jeff).

I was mildly (and pleasantly) surprised by the strength of Jeff's vote. The biggest bust of the night was Stoll: only about 4% in StL city and county, in spite of endorsements from teachers, Missouri Right to Life (albeit not usually important in a Democratic primary) and the overrated 9th and (according to Archpundit) 15th Ward organizations.

Spoilers? Neither Mohn nor Evans won enough votes to have made a difference. The ironic possible spoiler was Jo Ann Karll. Rumored to have been put in the race to take Jeffco votes from Stoll (but she got less than 5% of the Jeffco vote), she may well have attracted some pro-choice women from Jeff (as was the case in the Clayton Township endorsement vote). Her 1.5% in StL city and county might have tipped the balance. On the other hand, I hate the underlying assumption of "spoiler" analysis that parties or candidates somehow "own" voters, and the accompanying resentment over those votes being "stolen" by another choice. Choice is a good thing. The solution is instant runoff voting (IRV), which establishment Democrats oppose because they think Libertarians "steal" votes from Republicans.

The district will stay in Democratic hands thanks to Joyce Aboussie's 2001 redistricting plan.

This election was stolen, but St. Louis is again too afraid to look reality in the eye when the circumstances point in the direction of corruption in the city.
Yes, Jo Ann Karll was a spoiler and one could make a case that Mark Smith was as well, but that's not where the real story is. The story is in the City, where 41 precincts were not reported until everyone went to bed.
Those vote counts are substantially lower than the other precincts that reported early and gave Favazza his voter bloc.
Larry and Dave, I'm not slamming you, but when you have signs of disenfranchisement similar to what happened in Florida and we don't fully investigate, that is an equal injustice we must not ignore.
We all know Joyce isn't a real Democrat, just a power monger. Now she has a new puppet to replace Dick-Russ.
Also, I don't think Russ can beat Federer because he sucks at debating. Federer is a Nazi, but he's a media savvy Nazi that can string two sentences together.
I do not have a good feeling about the 3rd.

Actually...I think there was just a problem with the way that votes were tabulated online. Analyzing the SOS site last night before the last "41" precincts came in shoed what I think was just a simple mistake. The City had 149 of 208 precincts reporting, but both District 1 and 3 said that they had 64 reporting (of 103 and 105). But District 3 had 32,000 votes while District 1 had 20,000. I believe that far more of District 3's precincts had been reported than the website says, especially considering that only 4,000 more votes showed up this morning in the 3rd District.

It's unfortunate, but I guess I'll tip my hat to Carnahan (maybe not...I mean, with the amount of money and name recognition that he had, he should've won by 10-20%....) Also, even if there were 41 precincts still to report, I doubt that Jeff would've had the chance to catch up anyways. He had 1700 votes to make up, and on my basic calculations, he was up on Russ 24 or something like that in every precinct. He would've needed 40-45 in every remaining precinct to surpass Russ.

Anyways...at least Federer won't win....

There was no conspiracy at the BoE. Jeff had people down there to check on things and the Mayor kept everyone informed much to his credit. Jeff lost.

From everything I know about this (which is admittedly limited), Mayor Slay and his staff are to be commended for running the election with integrity. I don't like the result, but IMO that is not the fault of anything the city administration did wrong.

David,

1. I wouldn't tip my hat to Russ for anything. He got beaten badly in the City and County. The only reason he won is that a bunch of folks in Jefferson County who knew nothing about him other than his name voted for him as a Stoll alternative. He may very well have been the worst candidat in this race. His mother raised all of his money and ensured all of his endorsements. If this race had last two more days he would have lost the city and county badly enough to Jeff Smith to have lost the whole thing. The word is out that this guy has no business being a congressman.

2. Federer has no business is congress either... but you can bet the the national Republican Party smells blood after another overwhelming 1% victory by Russ. I hope and pray that Russ doesn't blow it. I wouldn't be so confident.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear...
I'm not really tipping my cap to Russ...I gagged when watching him talk last night on the channels. I was also laughing how the FOX analysts seemed to think that Federer had a better shot against Jeff than Russ. It's unfortunate that the amendments and governor races brought out so many people who don't really pay attention to the races. If I don't know anything about a race, I don't vote, but I know a lot of people don't do the same. That's unfortunate.

No matter who wins in November, there should be a battle in 2006. It's unfortunate that if Russ should win, he'll be able to call himself the incumbent. But for now...Go Carnahan.

Interesting to think what would have happened if we had a runoff between Jeff Smith and Carnahan. I am guessing that all of the other candidates would have endorsed Jeff and at least half of Russ's vote would have migrated over to Jeff now that the media has finally given him some positive exposure and everyone knows that the emperor has no clothes. What a waste.

BTW... Nice showing by Mark Smith.

This was certainly had to be one of the most interesting races in the country this year. The
local media completely missed the story until after the polls closed last night.

I think Mark Smith would have backed Carnahan actually. There was a lot of tension between Mark and Jeff's camps. But otherwise, it would have been interesting. The Favazza folks would have just stayed home