Updated: Keefe concedes 158th race

~Up-to-the-minute election results of Tuesday's election will be available at semissourian.com.

UPDATED 9:22 p.m.

Reporter Rudi Keller phoned in saying that around 9:15 p.m. Democrat Mike Keefe called Republican Mary Kasten to concede the election for the 158th District Missouri House of Representatives seat.

Kasten, surrounded by about 50 supporters, thanked everyone and called the campaign a "clean effort."

Results from all but one precinct are posted on our site.

UPDATED 8:39 p.m.

Reporter Rudi Keller phoned in this account from the Keefe camp.

Democratic supporters of Mike Keefe remained optimistic despite early returns showing him slightly behind Mary Kasten in the special election to fill; the 158th District Missouri House of Representatives seat.

With fewer than half the precincts reporting Keefe was behind Kasten by approximately 300 votes.

Keefe and his supporters were gathered at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall on Gerhardt Avenue in Cape Girardeau.

At approximately 8:30 p.m. Keefe looked at the board reporting the precinct-by-precinct returns and gave an upbeat assessment to his supporters. The precincts that haven't reported, he said, are precincts that generally tend to be evenly split or go Democratic.

"It is going to be down to the wire, folks," Keefe said.

UPDATED 8:21 p.m.

With 13 precincts and absentee votes counted, Republican Mary Kasten has a slight lead over Democrat Mike Keefe in the race for the 158th District Missouri House of Represntatives seat, Peg McNichol is reporting from Jackson.

Kasten leads with 1,283 to Keefe's 1,072 and 114 for Libertarian Steve Kinder.

Not all of the 13 precincts counted are part of the 158th district. Our election results page will be updated periodically as more totals come in.

UPDATED 8:10 p.m.

The first few precincts in the 158th Missouri legislative district have been counted. You can see results here.

UPDATED 7:53 p.m.

Absentee results are in for Cape Girardeau County, with Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and Mary Kasten in the lead. See them on our results page.

UPDATED 6:43 p.m.

The Associated Press has released some information nuggets from exit polls in Missouri today:

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VIEWS OF THE ECONOMY

Missouri voters aren't enthusiastic about the economy, but Republicans feel better about it than Democrats. Nine in 10 Democrats rated the nation's economy as "not so good" or "poor," while about two-thirds of Republicans offered the same assessment.

Nearly half the voters in both primaries said the economy was the most important issue.

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CANDIDATE QUALITIES

Among the Democratic candidates, Sen. Barack Obama did best among voters who said "can bring about needed change" was the most important candidate quality. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did best among voters who cited "has the right experience." Among the Republicans, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's best showing was "shares my values." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain both did best with those citing "has the right experience."

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INDEPENDENT TURNOUT

Slightly more than one-in-five voters in both the Republican and Democratic primaries called themselves independents.

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PHILOSOPHY

Missouri Democrats tend to be more moderate than liberal, while Republicans lean strongly to the right. Half of Democrats call themselves moderates, while about two-fifths call themselves liberals. Among Republicans, two-thirds call themselves conservative and about a quarter call themselves moderate.

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DECISION TIME

Many Missourians were still making up their minds until close to the last minute. About three-in-10 Democrats and Republicans said they decided on a candidate either on Election Day or during the last three days.

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RELIGION

The majority of Missouri voters in both primaries are Protestant or attend some other Christian denomination -- three-in-five Democrats and nearly three-quarters of Republicans. More than half of Republicans describe themselves as white, born-again Christians.

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BUSH-SUPPORT

President Bush carried Missouri in both 2000 and 2004, and the Show-Me State still supports him -- just not with great enthusiasm. Just over one-in-10 Republican primary voters said they were "enthusiastic" about the Bush Administration, but more than four-in-10 were "satisfied, but not enthusiastic." Only about one-in-10 were "angry" with the administration. Democratic voters were not asked to rate the president.

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RACE AND GENDER

With the top two Democrats a woman and a black man, Democratic primary voters were asked if gender and race were factors. In both cases, about four-fifths said gender and race were not important factors.

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Source: From interviews of 467 Republican primary voters and 685 Democratic primary voters conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 30 precincts across Missouri on Tuesday. Margin of sampling error is plus or minus 7 percentage points for the Republican primary and 6 percentage points for the Democratic primary.

The AP is also reporting Barack Obama as the winner of the Georgia Democratic primary.

UPDATED 4:23 p.m.

The Associated Press now has its Super Tuesday videos up and running. You can access them here.

And the AP is reporting that Mike Huckabee has won the West Virginia Republican nominating convention.

UPDATED 3:39 p.m.

The special legislative election combined with a presidential primary was drawing a large turnout to precincts across Cape Girardeau today, with poll workers in some locations reporting numbers that could rival November balloting.

At the Arena Building, where voters from two precincts cast ballots, more than 1,000 people had cast ballots by 1 p.m., election workers said. By comparison, about 800 voters total cast ballots in the two precincts in the August 2006 primary election.

"This is a big turnout," said Willard Morgan, an election official for Precinct 17 at the Arena building, where more than 600 people cast ballots.

And Opal Perkins, who has been working at the polls for Precinct 7 for 38 years, said the 430 who had voted shows a strong interest in the election. "Sometimes we've had to sit and wait and nobody would show up," she said.

At Scott City's polling place, the Broadway United Methodist Church, 460 had voted by 1:45 p.m.

Polls in Missouri are open until 7 p.m. Polls in Illinois close at 6 p.m. The presidential primary will determine which candidate receives Missouri's delegates at the party national conventions this summer. The special election, pitting Republican Mary Kasten against Democrat Mike Keefe and Libertarian Steve Kinder, will fill the final 11 months of former Rep. Nathan Cooper's term. Cooper resigned in August after pleading guilty to federal immigration fraud charges.

Voters leaving the Arena Building said that both the presidential primary and the legislative special election had captured their interest. Brad Welker, who voted in the Republican presidential primary, choose former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as his choice based on what he heard in the debates, he said.

In the 158th District, Welker said he voted for Kinder because "I didn't care for the other two."

But Kasten's long-time public life -- she was on the Cape Girardeau Board of Education for 20 years prior to her election to the Missouri House in 1982 -- helped her with Bill and Susan Cole. "We have kown Mary for a lot of years," Bill Cole said.

At Precinct 2, Westminster Church at Perryville Road and Cape Rock Drive, almost 600 people had voted by 2 p.m. Election workers there predicted that turnout would be higher than in April, when muncipal elections will be held.

Voter Owen Dye chose Romney for president and Kasten in the general election with his votes cast at Westminster.

"I've just known her for so long and she's done a good job," Dye said.

Janet Seib chose Kasten and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primary. "I think he is more down to earth and knows what the people want and need," she said.

Two Democrats voting at Westminster, Brandon Cramer and Melissa Cramer-McClain, both said they chose U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in the presidential balloting and Keefe in the legislative contest. Keefe was their choice because he was the Democratic nominee, both said.

Even at some of the lighter voting precincts in the city, election workers were reporting strong turnout. At Cape Girardeau City Hall, more than 200 voters had cast ballots by 12:30 p.m. -- exceeding the August 2006 total turnout -- and 93 voters had cast their ballots at the House of Hope, more than double the August 2006 turnout.

At city hall, Danny Kirkpatrick cast a vote for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the Democratic presidential primary. "I believe he is the right man for the job," he said.

But Kirkpatrick crossed party lines to vote for Kasten. He chose Kasten, he said, "because she has a name I am familiar with and she's done good work in the past in political office."

At House of Hope, election worker Geneva Robinson said the turnout was exceptional for her precinct. "Usually we wouldn't have had this many the whole day," she said.

Voter Cindy Miller said she voted for Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary but chose Kasten for the Missouri House seat. Miller said she chose Clinton for her experience and gave the same reason for choosing Kasten.

-- By Rudi Keller

UPDATED 2:17 p.m.

Cape Girardeau County Clerk Kara Clark is visiting all the precincts, making sure poll workers have everything they need this Super Tuesday.

Some have worried about running out of ballots, but Clark said the county can supply extras if necessary.

At 2 p.m., she was in Bethany Baptist Church, the polling site for precincts 13 and 15. Ten people were casting ballots.

She said turnout has been steady throughout the county.

Clark said she's seeing a "very high turnout. I've been around to almost every location in Cape city so far today. Even with our out-county precincts, we see, definitely ... a lot of people are turning out today."

Despite a December mailing of 45,000 updated voter registration cards, Clark said poll workers are seeing many people arriving at the wrong place to vote.

"We have had substantial number of address changes," she said. "We will make all the changes that we have today; we'll get those in in the next week or so."

She said Super Tuesday's turnout will help minimize problems later this year, especially for November's general election.

In Precinct 17, which includes voters from the 157th and 158th districts, "many people wondered why they couldn't vote on the state representative race," she said, referring to the election to replace former 158th district representative Nathan Cooper.

-- By Peg McNichol

Read about Peg McNichol's own experience with voting problems on her blog.

UPDATED 11:09 a.m.

Early results from the Southeast Missourian's unscientific online Super Tuesday polls show leads for Mary Kasten, Sen. Barack Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

So far 219 votes have been cast in the poll for the 158th District Missouri House of Representatives race. Kasten, a Republican, has 113 votes, Democrat Mike Keefe has 73 and Libertarian Steve Kinder has 33.

Out of 172 votes cast Obama has 98 to Sen. Hillary Clinton's 74. For the Republicans, 197 votes were cast: 46 for McCain, 63 for Romney, 54 for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and 34 for Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.

UPDATED 10:27 a.m.

Super Tuesday is just getting underway, with polls in Missouri and Illinois staying open until 7 p.m.

But the pollsters think they might already know who will win the presidential primary contests.

CNN.com devotes a whole page to Super Tuesday polling data. These polls show Arizona Sen. John McCain well in the lead for Missouri's Republican delegates, and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama tied in the Democratic contest.

In Illinois the picture is largely the same, but Obama has the Democratic lead in his home state.

For more on the Super Tuesday presidential primary in Missouri read this Associated Press article.

Want to know where to vote? It's easy.

You can find your local polling place with this lookup on the Missouri Secretary of State's Web site.

You can find voting precincts in Cape Girardeau county here

Voting for Missouri's presidential primary and locally for the 158th district Missouri House of Representatives seat will take place from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The Southeast Missourian will update election results as they come in on our Web site, semissourian.com, including a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the 158th district race and county-by-county numbers in the presidential primary.

Presidential candidates on the Missouri ballot include candidates still in the race for their party's nomination -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul for the Republicans; and Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama for the Democrats -- along with many candidates who have already dropped out of the race.

Locally, Republican Mary Kasten, Democrat Mike Keefe and Libertarian Steve Kinder will seek election to the 158th district seat vacated by former Missouri Rep. Nathan Cooper.

Here are some of our past stories related to the State Representative (158th district) election candidates:

Candidates for the 158th District prepare for election day

158th hopefuls split on Medicaid

Campaign fundraising reports

Candidates in 158th District race spar over Medicaid, taxes

158th Focus: Stem Cells

<a href="http://www.semissourian.com/story/1305437.html

">Missouri Right to Life endorses Keefe

State representative candidates report their finances ahead of Feb. 5 election