Republican incumbent Jim Lembke is very vulnerable to Democratic challenger Bob Burns’s in the upcoming November election for state representative in Missouri ’s 85th House District, according to my poll of 302 likely voters conducted September 7 through 9.

Only 33% say they will definitely vote for Lembke, 18 points shy of the majority he would need to win. An almost equal share, 29%, reply they will definitely vote to replace him. Only 36% give Lembke either an excellent or good job performance rating while 46% assign him either an only fair or poor score.

A plurality, 47%, say Missouri is headed in the wrong direction, a group predisposed to vote against any incumbent. Only 32% see the state going in the right direction with the remainder indicating the picture is mixed.

Lembke’s favorable/unfavorable ratio is just 1.68 (42% favorable/25% unfavorable) while Burns’s is much better at 3.75 (30% favorable/8% unfavorable).