Robin Smith said she is running for Missouri secretary of state, the state’s highest election authority, because “the right to vote is more in jeopardy now than ever.”
She pointed to Amendment 6, which will be on the November 8 ballot along with Smith. If the measure is passed and survives the inevitable legal challenge, it would impose a photo ID requirement to vote in future elections in the state.
“Amendment 6 would remove 220,000 voters from the right to go to the polls,” Smith said – “mostly the disabled, minorities, veterans, the elderly, college students and those who are financially challenged and do not own a car.”
Smith, 62, retired from KMOV as news anchor in July 2015 after 42 years in broadcast media. She said that her decades of media exposure, coupled with the prominence of her husband, former University of Kansas basketball standout Isaac “Bud” Stallworth, make her uniquely positioned to make history. Missouri has never elected an African American to statewide office.
She said with her media exposure in the St. Louis area, she has name recognition with 42 percent of the voters needed to win. And her husband, who continues to do broadcast work on KU basketball games, has name recognition with another 30 percent of the voters needed to win. The two have been campaigning together to win KU fans over to her cause.
Smith claims her math was borne out in the August 2 primary, when more than 77 percent of Democrats voted for her. She pointed that Chris Koster, who is running for governor, only got 1 more percent of the vote on August 2 after spending tens of millions of dollars in advertising, whereas she did not advertise at all. Koster got more votes than she did, but not many: 256,272 to 241,736.
However, Smith’s prospects in the November 8 general election are dimmed by comparing raw vote totals on August 2 with her Republican opponent, John (Jay) Ashcroft, who got 401,361 votes, compared to her 241,736 votes, in a more competitive primary than Smith had. More than twice as many Republicans cast a vote for secretary of state on August 2 than Democrats, 654,472 votes to 312,800 votes.
Smith dismissed the comparison, saying that Republicans tend to vote more than Democrats in primaries, whereas Democrats vote more than Republicans in general elections. The staff for the current secretary of state (Jason Kander, who is running for U.S. Senate) do not keep data to verify this claim, but looking at the most recent election for the office is revealing. In 2012, nearly twice as many Republicans voted for secretary of state in the primary – 547,496 to 285,020 votes – yet Kander won the general election over the Republican nominee, Shane Schoeller, by nearly 40,000 votes.
(It’s interesting to note that Smith’s opponent for the state’s chief election officer, Ashcroft, is an irregular voter. The Kansas City Star pointed out that Ashcroft sat out seven major elections between 2000 and 2012, including Republican primaries in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012.)
Smith certainly has captured the attention of the candidates at the top of the ballot. At the urging of U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Kansas City), Hillary Clinton met privately with Smith when she met with clergy in Kansas City on September 8.
“She understands the importance of the minority vote,” Smith said of Clinton. “She has been meeting with candidates she believes will win who are strong advocates for women and minorities.”
As for Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, he understands the importance of KU basketball, though he is himself a Mizzou graduate. Kaine spoke to the Missouri delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 28, the morning after he accepted the VP nomination. Smith chanted, “Rock chalk, Jayhawk!” to Kaine as he passed in the crowd, got his attention through a phalanx of Secret Service agents, and indicated that she had the KU legend Stallworth towering behind her.
“Bud!” Kaine screamed. “I’ve got to talk to you!”
Smith’s calculation of her husband’s value to her campaign clearly is not misplaced.
She also has on her side the public’s frequently polled preference for a candidate who is not a “career politician,” given that this is her first run for office. Her opponent, Ashcroft, lost a race for state Senate in 2014 against Jill Schuup.
Smith is not the child of a former U.S. attorney general, U.S. Senator and Missouri governor, like Ashcroft, but she has her own political pedigree. Both her father, Wayman Flynn Smith Jr., and her brother, Wayman Smith III, served as St. Louis aldermen. Her godfather, Frederick N. Weathers, a legend in the African-American community and dean of North St. Louis politics who helped Bill Clay get his start (and had a post office on North Kingshighway Boulevard named after him).
But she insists she entered this race on her own steam, with no political support. Politics is a rumor mill, and when her candidacy was first announced, tongues wagged – without evidence – that Koster put her in the race to spike the minority vote for his own benefit. “That is a bad rumor,” Smith said. “I did not talk to Chris Koster prior to my announcement, and not one dollar from Koster has been put in my campaign account.”
Election day is Tuesday, November 8. The deadline to register to vote is October 12.
