On November 8, voters took to the polls to vote for their preferred candidates as well as decide which policy positions they would or wouldn’t like codified into law.

On a national level, the Democratic party was able to maintain control of the Senate. While there is yet one state to be accounted for, the Senate will at least be a 50/50 tie, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker, just as it was before the midterm election. As for the House, the Republican party ended up gaining control by a narrow margin; a change of power as Democrats formerly had control by a narrow margin.

In the state of Missouri, the Republican candidate Eric Schmitt, former state attorney general, won the Senate seat. He will assume the position in 2023, replacing the former Republican Senator Roy Blunt who is retiring. Schmitt beat his Democratic opponent, Trudy Busch-Valentine, known for being the daughter of the former owner of Anheuser Busch, by about 13.4%.

At a more local level, House results from counties near Pattonville included District One, where Democrat incumbent Cori Bush won with 72.8% of the vote, and District Two, where Republican incumbent Ann Wagner won with 54.9% of the vote.

Among the amendments that were proposed, the legalization of recreational marijuana under amendment five ended up passing narrowly with 53.1% of the vote in favor.

Senior Angelo Broadnax said that it’s “about time” recreational marijuana gets legalized in Missouri.

“Of course, overconsumption of it is a bad thing, but I feel since it’s not really a hard drug and it’s been proven that it doesn’t have that many side effects, it’s fine,” Broadnax said.

In regards to his thoughts on the midterm results across the country, Broadnax said that he’s “not surprised with the outcome.” He stated that there was a “massive increase in much more younger people” that voted, and that he expected a majority of them to vote much more left-leaning.

“All that talk of a red wave kind of got canceled out with [another] blue tsunami of people… that saw previous years’ policies by Republicans and thought ‘I don’t want that,’” Broadnax said.

In terms of what he thinks this election indicates for the 2024 Presidential election, Broadnax said that it depends on if the Democrats have a good enough candidate or not.

“I don’t think Biden’s gonna be elected based off of everything and everyone crapping on him.” He said it does, however, “give us a massive idea of what the voter turnout will be, who’s going to win where, but not so much who’s gonna win [the presidency].”

Broadnax also emphasized that if President Biden and former President Trump were to square off again that he is “unsure” of who would win, but that he felt it would be returning to having to choose between the “lesser of two evils” once again.

Senior Austin Kirton stated that he feels it’s a good thing recreational marijuana has been legalized.

“We’ll have more laws and set higher standards for people because when it wasn’t legalized, people would just sneak it in. They wouldn’t have a certain limit, they could just do it,” Kirton said.

Kirton also expressed how surprised he was by how close the election results were considering the events of the past few years, and said that he “thought it’d be more right than left, but it’s kinda close.”

In terms of Kirton’s thoughts on former President Trump announcing his 2024 Presidential run, Kirton said that he would prefer another candidate.

“I thought that Desantis would run and, if anything, Trump could be his Vice President. Which would make more sense to me cause… I don’t know if [Trump is] gonna win or not,” Kirton said. “My personal stance is I don’t think Joe Biden’s gonna win again after everything that’s happened… and if Desantis wins (the Republican nomination) I feel like he’d have a long shot of winning that by far.” Kirton added that while he didn’t hate Trump, he’d simply rather him not run.

While the midterms weren’t as much of a success as the Republican party was hoping for, they still narrowly took control of the House, and so far have kept Democrats from gaining any more seats in the Senate.

With the “red wave” Americans were expecting not coming to fruition, the direction the country will go in the 2024 election is up in the air. It has truly left the American people unsure as to where it will go, particularly when it comes to the presidential election, and especially with former President Trump announcing his bid once again to run for President of the United States on November 15.

2022 Senate Midterm Result Infographic created by Christian Movick.