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Local
voters follow
trend,
favor Kerry
by Mark Vasto
Landmark reporter
Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry won the Missouri state primary
handily on Tuesday, capturing a little more than
51 percent of the vote.
“I am really grateful for the extraordinary
margin in Missouri,” Kerry told reporters
from the Associated Press late Tuesday night.
Kerry’s win can hardly be considered a mandate
from Missouri voters, however. Only 543,708 of
the state's nearly 3.8 million registered voters
— just under 7 percent — even bothered
to vote in the primary. In Platte County, 5,148
citizens voted, a little more than 9 percent of
the county’s registered voters.
With 100 percent of Missouri’s 4,002 precincts
reporting, Kerry won 51 percent to John Edwards’
25 percent. Fading former front-runner Howard
Dean netted 9 percent, Wesley Clark with 4 percent,
Sen. Joe Lieberman with 4 percent, Al Sharpton
with 3 percent, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich with
1 percent.
Platte County’s results closely mirrored
the statewide results of the race. Kerry received
50 percent of the Platte County vote, Edwards
finished second with 28 percent and Dean came
in a distant third, capturing only 9 percent.
Every one of the county’s 34 precincts saw
Kerry take the majority of voters.
On the Republican side, President George W. Bush
won 95.1 percent against two relatively unknown
candidates. The president, who is all but assured
his party’s nomination barring unknown catastrophe,
received a little more than 117,000 votes in the
Missouri primary— more than Democratic hopeful
John Edwards and nearly three times as many votes
as Howard Dean.
In the sole question seen on the ballot for a
small portion of Edgerton based Platte County
voters, East Buchanan C-1’s request to raise
its operating tax levy by $.93 cents per $100
of assessed valuation was struck down by an 8
to 1 margin. Buchanan County voters narrowly defeated
the measure 282 to 279. If passed, the new levy
for the district would have increased from $4.33
to $5.26.
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