St. Louis, MO - Smashing the Delmar Divide

Through the heart of St. Louis, MO runs a road called Delmar Boulevard that politically and economically splits the city in two. Locals call it the Delmar Divide. The north side is predominantly black, the south side predominantly white. Decades of politics had favored the white south side, leaving the black north side to struggle. In a city where the population for both white and black voters was essentially equal, all city politics revolved around this question, “which side would win, and which side would be shut out?”

St. Louis had an issue that made things worse. Races for offices like mayor and alderman were drawing upwards of seven candidates, leading candidates to split votes between them and denying a majority winner. From 2015-2019, there were eight city elections in St. Louis where the winner earned less than 37% of the vote. Of those eight elections, five had winners who earned less than 20% of the vote. For decades there was suspicion that this was done purposefully by white politicians who would find extra black candidates to run (politicos called them “stalking horses”) to split the black vote to help white politicians win.

Purposeful or not, the vote splitting issue in St. Louis was out of control, and was often the communities of color who were penalized for having multiple candidates from their community run in the same election. This was especially true in the 2017 race for mayor, where five major candidates ran for mayor.

• Lyda Krewson - Alderwoman

• Tishaura Jones - City Treasurer and former state representative

• Lewis Reed - President, Board of Aldermen

• Antonio French - Alderman

• Jeffrey Boyd - Alderman

  

South St. Louis had one major candidate, Krewson, while north St. Louis had four. Despite 68% of voters choosing black candidates, Krewson won. St. Louis voters rightfully asked, how is this right?

A coalition emerged to reform St. Louis elections. They started a ballot initiative campaign, called Prop D (for Democracy), and an organization to advocate for it, St. Louis Approves. They wanted to end vote splitting by bringing approval voting to all city elections. In 2019 The Center for Election joined the effort. St. Louis Approves was able to build a large coalition from across the city that went to community events, town halls and door-to-door to grow support for this effort. In November 2020 St. Louisans overwhelmingly voted in favor of the measure, passing it with 68% support. 

Smashing the Divide

March of 2021 would be the first election in St. Louis history to use approval voting. Four major candidates ran, excluding Mayor Krewson who chose not to run for re-election. They included Tishuara Jones and Lewis Reed from 2017, as well as Alderwoman Cara Spencer and businessman Andrew Jones. Approval voting radically changed the election.

• Candidates pushed for broader support on both sides of the Delmar Divide

• Voters could support multiple candidates who were similar, whether it be along ideological, racial or geographical lines

• There was a clear consensus winner 

Tishaura Jones, hindered by vote splitting in the past, was the far-and-away winner of the first approval voting election with 57% approval. The real power of approval voting came into focus when plotting Jones' support on a map. The darker the blue, the higher approval support for her. Outlined in yellow is Delmar Boulevard.

While other candidates still drew most of their support from one side of the divide, Jones’ support transcended the old borders. Jones had smashed through the Delmar Divide by appealing to the whole city, and she would go on to make history as the first black female mayor of St. Louis just a few months later.

Aftermath

A poll conducted by Change Research in March of 2021 captured the broad feelings of support for approval voting.

• 81% of voters appreciated approval voting’s simplicity.

• 67% of voters appreciated being able to express their preferences easily, without worrying about electability.

• 60% of voters want to use approval voting to elect other officials.

Voters on average voted for 1.6 candidates on average. The City of St. Louis officials stated that no additional funding was used to make the change - all they did was allow for voters to fill in more bubbles on their ballots. 

In 2022, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen threatened to repeal Prop D, as some felt it threatened their power. The coalition regrouped, even larger this time, to enshrine approval voting into their charter forever. Bucking the desires of the Aldermen, St. Louis voters chose to keep Prop D’s reforms in a measure called Prop R (for “Reform”) - voting 69% in favor.

St. Louis continues to use approval voting in city elections to this day.