Buchanan County

I mean, Crystal Quaid was a hardcore left winger, which is why she suffered the worst loss in Missouri history in the governor's race.

In two years, you put up a guy like a Steven Weber who's got the military background from sort of middle Missouri, not a Kansas City, St. Louis guy, son of a teacher, would seem to have the credibility to go to Buchanan County to Jefferson County and talk to people like, well, yeah, I used to be a Republican, but now all they do is X, Y, and Z.

And I'm frustrated.

And he could talk to them.

and the voters rejected that pretty soundly by about 7% here in Missouri.

The county that I reside in, Buchanan County, voted no on that amendment.

When you look at the interesting list of the counties that voted no and voted yes on Amendment 3, The closest correlation I could find to that was population density.

So where are the biggest cities in Missouri? So you have St.

So that'd be St. Charles, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, Jefferson County.

And then you have like Springfield, which is Greene County, and you have Kansas City, which is Jackson County, Clay County, and Platt County, plus a couple surrounding ones.

And where we are here in Northwest Missouri in Buchanan County, Most of the larger populated counties with bigger cities, more urban, voted no on overturning the reproductive freedom constitutional amendment.

And most of the more rural counties, of which there are many, voted yes.

and I think won about 15 seats from what I saw.

They also won two state Senate seats in Jackson County and Greene County, and they almost won a third one in Platte and Buchanan County that nobody thought was going to be on the board.

This is the best night for Missouri Democrats in terms of legislative gains in the entire 21st century.

It is truly without precedent over the last few election cycles.

to bring about accountability for those who have caused the harm, and to impact lasting change at political, economic, and social levels.

We are joined today by Leslie Williams, a victim advocate from Buchanan County here in Missouri.

Leslie has made the admirable choice to speak up against violence.

Her words are courageous, insightful, and inspire hope towards our shared vision that rape and abuse must end.

As we're getting started, can you please just share a little bit about yourself? Tell our listeners who you are and what you do.

Leslie Williams.

I'm from Buchanan County, Missouri.

I work in the prosecutor's office.

Brenda Shields owns a farm.

I don't know how much production there is, but they do own a farm in Buchanan County.

Mazie came from a very...

I think a very ag-centered family.

I live in Sullivan County, and I'm running for the State Senate for District 12, which encompasses 18 districts.

counties plus a little bit of Buchanan County.

It's a large area, mostly rural, and one of the main reasons I'm running is because people deserve a choice.

I didn't feel that it was fair for them to go and cast their ballot when there was only one person, and that person has disappointed a lot of people.

We also do have a county commission, which is explicitly partisan, as are county-wide offices.

So we have three members of our local, and in Missouri it does vary how this works by county, in Buchanan County, We have three members of our county commission, each elected to four-year terms.

One of those is a presiding commissioner, and then you have a western district commissioner, which is where I reside in that district.

Then you have an eastern district commissioner in the eastern part of our county.

And that one vacancy prevents a supermajority status by the Republican Party.

State Senate District, in the case of where I live, is just under two full counties.

Buchanan County, where we are, and Platt County, just south of us.

Not all of Buchanan County is in the same state Senate district where we're at.