Mark Alford

We're going to be covering that a lot.

Mark Alford and Julie Fedorchik, Alford of Missouri, Fedorchik of your home state of North Dakota, both running for conference secretary.

And Pat Fallon is throwing his support behind August Pfluger for House Minority Whip.

Pfluger is running against Tom Emmer, and Tom Emmer is getting backing from Brandon Gill.

And the first sign of looking in the mirror is a change of leadership from the House and the Senate Republican leadership.

And Mark Alford, about a month and a half ago, you were talking to him, and he said, hey, I'm going back to Washington, going to sit down with a colleague, have a cigar, and talk about a plan.

Well,

there's your problem right there.

And the first sign of looking in the mirror is a change of leadership from the House and the Senate Republican leadership.

And Mark Alford, about a month and a half ago, you were talking to him, and he said, hey, I'm going back to Washington, going to sit down with a colleague, have a cigar, and talk about a plan.

Well, there's your problem right there.

A month and a half out from one of the most important midterms in our lifetime, and we're going to work on a plan.

This morning, Steve runs down the results with Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty and William Jewell College political scientist Abigail Vector.

Plus, we'll hear from winners Kansas U.S. Senator-elect Adam Hamilton, Missouri U.S. Representative Mark Alford of the 4th Congressional District, Missouri U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver of the 5th Congressional District, and Missouri U.S. Representative-elect Chris Tagal of the 6th Congressional District.

What did you make of what happened in Kansas last night? I mean, Democrat Adam Hamilton won his race against incumbent Republican Roger Marshall, while other statewide races for governor, for attorney general, secretary of state remained too close to call, at least for the Associated Press.

And that's the standard that KCUR uses to call these races.

In the Kansas City area last night, two Missouri congressmen skated to reelection yesterday, and one is going to be an incoming freshman congressman who's taking the place of outgoing Representative Sam Graves.

That's newly elected Representative Chris DeGaulle.

But I want to bring Mark Alford into our conversation.

He won his third election last night, a Republican from Missouri's 4th District, which is, generally speaking, south and east of Kansas City.

If the new map had been in place, I am not convinced Emanuel Cleaver would have lost.

And I think Mark Alford might have lost too.

And I think that...

Chris DeGaulle might have lost.

So, you know, we got to throw our votes at him.

But other than him and some guy named Mark Alford.

Everyone else underperformed, way underperformed than the district did in 2024, which tells me a whole lot more about what the electorate's doing right below the surface, right down where you can't even see what's going on.

Because these are now districts that are going to have to defend because these are now within striking distance within like throw a little money at them.