Luetkemeyer

Blaine Luetkemeyer kept the 9th District U.S. House seat in Republican hands on Tuesday, defeating Democrat Judy Baker in a high-spending battle featuring numerous negative television commercials.

Luetkemeyer carried most rural counties and the metro St. Louis portion of the district to beat Baker, who ran up a 58-39 percent majority in her home base of Boone County (Columbia.) Columbia is the largest single population center in the district.

The 25-county district stretches from the Iowa state line to the Lake of the Ozarks and from Columbia to the western fringe of the St. Louis area. The latter portion includes Franklin and Warren counties and parts of western and southern St. Charles County.

With three-fourths of the vote in Boone County still yet to be reported at 11 p.m., Baker campaign leaders held out hope that they could eke out a late-breaking victory. But that didn’t happen.

In the end, with 469 of 471 precincts reporting - including all the polling places in Boone County - Luetkemeyer had 160,955 votes (50 percent), Baker 152,851 (47 percent) and Libertarian nominee Tamara Millay 8,100 (3 percent.)

Luetkemeyer, a former state representative from St. Elizabeth, put out a post-election press release saying he would “provide a strong voice in Congress for the people of the 9th District by fighting against job-killing taxes and supporting job creation, affordable energy, secure borders and affordable and accessible health care.”

Baker, in a telephone interview, said “we had the momentum building but couldn’t get to the finish line.”  “We’re very proud of the race we ran,” said Baker, a state representative.

She said her performance in the district, which had been represented the past 12 years by the GOP’s Kenny Hulshof, bodes well for Democrats in the future. Asked if she’d be interested in running again, she said she wouldn’t rule out the idea.

Nearly complete returns showed Luetkemeyer carrying the St. Louis metro portion of the district with more than 53 percent of the vote. Baker carried only two counties other than Boone - Audrain and Pike.