Missouri poll shows race too close to call

Until now, Missouri has been overshadowed by the bigger Tuesday prizes in Ohio, Florida, Illinois and North Carolina. But a close race and the chance of picking up a handful of Missouri’s convention delegates have persuaded several candidates to invest time and energy in the state in the final hours…

Cruz sent his wife, Heidi, into the state Friday. Former rival Carly Fiorina also campaigned in Missouri for Cruz.

All the appearances suggest the candidates believe Missouri’s presidential verdict remains up for grabs.

Here are some reasons that might be true:

▪ The races in both parties are too close to call.

Trump and Hillary Clinton lead in their primaries, according to a poll published Friday by The Kansas City Star and a handful of Missouri newspapers, but the survey’s wide margin of error leaves the outcome in doubt.

The survey, conducted March 3-10, showed Trump leading the Republican field with 36 percent support among those in the GOP who said they planned to vote. Cruz was in second place with 29 percent.

Sen. Marco Rubio was third at 9 percent, and Gov. John Kasich was fourth at 8 percent. Both are campaigning hard in their home states of Florida and Ohio and are not expected to compete in Missouri…

The survey was conducted by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Its margin of error for Republicans was plus or minus 7 percentage points; for Democrats, it was 8 percentage points.

▪ Missouri is the only primary state Tuesday that does not offer some form of early voting.

Missouri allows absentee ballots, but a voter must have an authorized reason to cast such a vote. All the other states allow no-excuse absentee ballots.

That means the vast majority of the 1.3 million Missourians expected to cast ballots won’t vote until Tuesday and might be persuaded to switch their support in the final days.

Clinton, Sanders and Cruz are advertising heavily on Kansas City television over the weekend, as are some political action committees. Trump is relying on free media coverage, as he has in other states.

▪ Both parties are holding open primaries.

That means Democrats, Republicans and independents can cross over and cast ballots in either primary, potentially making the outcome less certain.

“It is so difficult to develop a reliable turnout model in primaries, particularly in essentially open primaries like in Missouri,” said Joel Paddock, a political science professor at Missouri State University in Springfield.

In other open primary and caucus states, Trump has picked up support from blue collar workers normally aligned with Democrats. Sanders has picked up votes from independents and younger voters unaffiliated with either party.

▪ Even a losing effort can capture delegates.

That’s an important factor at this stage of the campaign, when the focus turns to actual convention votes.

Republicans will allocate 52 convention delegates proportionally, unless one of the candidates gets more than 50 percent of the vote. In that case, it’s winner take all.

But a candidate can pick up five delegates by winning a congressional district, even if he slips below his opponents’ totals statewide.

Democrats will pick 71 delegates out of 84 allocated to Missouri. They’ll be awarded proportionally.

The 13 others are superdelegates, officially unpledged. Most have said they’re supporting Clinton.

While analysts think Trump and Clinton are the favorites in Missouri, they don’t rule out an upset.

That’s particularly true on the GOP side of the ballot. Cruz has won in states with a strong religious turnout, and socially conservative Republicans have turned out to vote in the state for years. While John McCain eked out a victory over Mike Huckabee in 2008, religious conservative Rick Santorum took a nonbinding Missouri primary four years ago.

Cruz’s campaign is being run by Jeff Roe, a native and a veteran of political warfare in the state.

“It is certainly possible that Cruz could win Missouri,” Paddock said…