Mike Bernskoetter Wins Missouri Senate Race, But Loses At Lake Of The Ozarks

Missouri Senator Mike Bernskoetter beat challenger Scott Riedel in a hotly contested primary race that ended Tuesday. Bernskoetter will be on the November ballot and is essentially a shoo-in for Missouri's District 6, which includes Lake of the Ozarks counties — Camden, Miller, and Morgan — as well as Cole and Moniteau counties.

Early Tuesday evening, with the majority of precincts reporting, including all of the Lake area, only a handful of votes separated the two. But as more precincts reported from other counties, Bernskoetter managed to pull away with the race. The victory came from Cole County, which contains Missouri's capitol, Jefferson City.

Still, it was a close one.

This year, Senate District 6 was changed as part of Missouri's redistricting process. It lost multiple counties, but gained a key — and politically active — county with the addition of Camden.

Riedel, a Camden County resident, appealed to a hard conservative position and also touted his decorated military record. That resonated with voters in the region: he gained key local endorsements, including from the Camden County Republican Club. Meanwhile, his campaign attacked Bernskoetter's voting record, arguing he had voted frequently with Democrats rather than with the Republican party's conservative wing.

While Bernskoetter disputed some of those claims, the messaging was effective. Riedel — who was a newcomer to politics — won 66% of the vote in Camden County, 50.3% in Morgan County, and 46% in Miller County. Looking at the Lake of the Ozarks tri-county area as a whole, Riedel was the Lake's pick, by a total regional vote of 9,185 (58%) to 6,571 (42%).

Here's a breakdown by county:

Bernskoetter

-Camden — 3,027

-Cole — 8,761

-Miller — 2,151

-Moniteau — 2,106

-Morgan — 1,393

TOTAL: 17,438

Riedel

-Camden — 5,952

-Cole — 3,786

-Miller — 1,822

-Moniteau — 1,016

-Morgan — 1,411

TOTAL: 13,987

In the end, Bernskoetter's victory came from counties further north, notably Cole County, where he got 70% of the vote. The number of votes cast in that race by Cole County voters alone (12,547) was more than the votes cast in Camden and Morgan counties combined (11,783), where Riedel held the majority. Riedel won the Lake area by 2,614 votes; Bernskoetter won Cole County by 4,975 votes. (Bernskoetter solidly won in Moniteau County as well, but the vote difference there was 1,090: not enough to offset Riedel's majority in the Lake area.)

LakeExpo reached out to Sen. Bernskoetter about the election results and how he plans to hear from Lake of the Ozarks voters for the upcoming session. He responded:

"I have already met with several leaders from Camden County and am looking forward to working with the folks down there.

"The fact of the matter is I already do represent the good people of the Lake area. We share conservative, common-sense values. Those are the same values I bring to work with me every day as a Senator. Over the next 4 years, I believe my constituents at the Lake will see that."

While to an outsider, it may seem ad hoc to group three counties into one, the three counties at Lake of the Ozarks have historically had key converging interests and concerns, most of which are related to the Lake itself—and regional development around it and as a result of it. Major state decisions like the merger of the Water Patrol and Highway Patrol affected Lake of the Ozarks more than any other singular area, and state laws passed in recent years regarding dock trespassing and boat anchoring locations have dealt directly with challenges faced at Lake of the Ozarks.