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Dent County, Missouri (view source)
Revision as of 00:18, January 28, 2021
, 00:18, January 28, 2021Added to page
* [[Bunker, Missouri|Bunker]] (partly in Reynolds County)
* [[Bunker, Missouri|Bunker]] (partly in Reynolds County)
* [[Salem, Missouri|Salem]] (county seat)
* [[Salem, Missouri|Salem]] (county seat)
==Government==
Local government in Dent County is provided by the elected officials. At present, a majority of these positions are held by members of the [[Republican]] party.<ref>https://www.mocounties.com/dent-county.php</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Countywide official !! Name !! Party
|-
| Assessor || Jamie Homeyer || Republican
|-
| Circuit Clerk || Becky Goforth Swiney || Democratic
|-
| County Clerk || Angie Curley || Democratic
|-
| Collector || Shannon VanKirk || Republican
|-
| Commissioner (presiding) || Darrell Skiles || Republican
|-
| Commissioner (District 1) || Wes Mobray || Republican
|-
| Commissioner (District 2) || Gary Larson || Republican
|-
| Coroner || Ben Pursifull || Republican
|-
| Prosecuting Attorney || Andrew Curley || Republican
|-
| Public Administrator || Sherida Cook || Republican
|-
| Recorder || Cindy Edwards-Ard || Republican
|-
| Sheriff || Bob Wells || Republican
|-
| Surveyor || Craig Ruble || Democratic
|-
| Treasurer || Denita Williams || Republican
|}
At the state level, all of Shannon County is part of the 143rd District in the Missouri House of Representatives, which also includes all of [[Oregon County, Missouri|Oregon]] and Shannon Counties and part of Reynolds County. It is currently represented by Ron Copeland (R-Salem), who was elected to his first term in November 2020 without opposition.
In the Missouri State Senate, Dent County is part of the 16th District, which also includes Camden, Crawford, Phelps, and Pulaski Counties. It is currently represented by Justin Dan Brown (R-Rolla), who was re-elected in November 2018, defeating [[Democratic]] candidate Ryan Dillon.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Candidate !! Party !! Votes !! Vote Percentage
|-
| Justin Dan Brown || Republican || 42,382 || 70.077%
|-
| Ryan Dillon || Democratic || 18,097 || 29.923%
|}
Brown somewhat overperformed his overall total in Dent County, winning 4,508 votes to 1,445 for Dillon.
At the federal level, Dent County is part of Missouri's 8th Congressional District, which includes most of southeast and south-central Missouri. It is represented by Jason Smith (R-Salem), who won re-election in November 2020, defeating Democrat Kathy Ellis.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Candidate !! Party !! Votes !! Vote Percentage
|-
| Jason Smith || Republican || 253,811 || 76.86%
|-
| Kathy Ellis || Democratic || 70,561 || 21.367%
|-
| Tom Schmitz || Libertarian || 5,854 || 1.773%
|}
Smith significantly overperformed his average margin in Dent County, winning 83.107% of the vote.<ref>https://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/s_default</ref>
'''Political Culture'''
As the above numbers indicate, despite occasionally voting Democratic on the local level, Dent County is a solidly [[Republican]] county at the state and national level. Though it generally supported Democratic candidates for much of the 20th century, it steadily trended toward the GOP from the 1960s on, and the last Democratic presidential nominee to win the county was [[Bill Clinton]] in 1992. In 2016, [[Donald Trump]] carried the county with 75.97% of the vote, increasing his total to 83.83% in the 2020 election.<ref>https://enrarchives.sos.mo.gov/enrnet/CountyResults.aspx</ref>
Like much of southern Missouri, Dent County can be included within the [[Bible Belt]], combining social [[conservatism]] with economic [[populism]]. In 2004, it voted overwhelmingly in favor of Constitutional Amendment 2, which recognized marriage as between a man and a woman only--the measure passed in Dent County with 85.93% support; following the [[Supreme Court]]'s imposition of gay marriage on the country in 2015, the county commission made a short-lived attempt to lower official flags in mourning. In 2006, while the state narrowly passed an amendment to fund embryonic stem-cell research, the county decisively defeated the measure with 66.49% voting against. At the same time, it often supports economic measures that appear to favor the working and middle class, though less strongly than some other areas. In the November 2006 election, the county, like the state, supported a proposed increase in the state minimum wage, with 74.62% voting in favor, but in November 2018, a similar measure (which passed the state at large) was narrowly defeated, with 53.55% voting against. These results generally align with the rest of southern Missouri.<ref>https://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/missouri-county-to-fly-flags-at-half-mast-to-mourn-supreme-courts-despicable-marriage-ruling/</ref>
==References==
==References==