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Politically Speaking: Lauren Arthur explains how she flipped a state Senate seat

St. Louis Public Radio | By Jo Mannies,
Marshall Griffin
Published June 14, 2018 at 2:53 PM CDT
State Sen.-elect Lauren Arthur flipped a seat that had been held by Republicans for 12 years.
Carolina Hidalgo | St. Louis Public Radio
State Sen.-elect Lauren Arthur flipped a seat that had been held by Republicans for 12 years.

On the latest edition of the Politically Speaking podcast, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jo Mannies and Marshall Griffin go “on location’’ to welcome Missouri state Sen.-elect Lauren Arthur.

A Democrat, Arthur has touched off a minor political earthquake with her June 5 success in handily winning a state Senate seat in suburban Kansas City that had been held by Republicans for 12 years. Both parties are examining her success to figure out how to duplicate it, or cut it short, in November.

Our team caught up with Arthur – soon to be the youngest member of the state Senate at age 30 – while she was in the state Capitol, preparing to move from her crowded digs in the state House that she shared with several Democratic colleagues. Her destination is larger, private quarters in the Senate.

The former teacher is promising to stick with the economic message that helped her win her new job by 20 percentage points. She believes her victory stems, in part, from voter disillusionment with the Republicans controlling most of Missouri’s state government.

Among her observations during the show:

  • She praises state Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Webber, who offered advice after losing his own Senate race in 2016, and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, who provided financial support.
  • She shares labor concerns about the General Assembly’s success in passing more laws last session that curb the rights of unions and state employees. “The people in Jefferson City have for the last several years prioritized the pet projects of billionaires and corporations. And it’s been to the detriment of everyone else.”
  • She calls for state Democrats to stay true to a progressive message, and to work hard to spread it. Arthur says her campaign workers made 150,000 phone calls and knocked on tens of thousands of doors during her three-month campaign. That effort paid off, she says, by energizing supporters and voters.


Follow Jo on Twitter: @jmannies

Follow Marshall on Twitter: @MarshallGReport

Follow Lauren Arthur on Twitter: @RepLaurenArthur

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Missouri News
Jo Mannies
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.
See stories by Jo Mannies
Marshall Griffin
St. Louis Public Radio State House Reporter Marshall Griffin is a native of Mississippi and proud alumnus of Ole Miss (welcome to the SEC, Mizzou!). He has been in radio for over 20 years, starting out as a deejay. His big break in news came when the first President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989. Marshall was working the graveyard shift at a rock station, and began ripping news bulletins off an old AP teletype and reading updates between songs. From there on, his radio career turned toward news reporting and anchoring. In 1999, he became the capital bureau chief for Florida's Radio Networks, and in 2003 he became News Director at WFSU-FM/Florida Public Radio. During his time in Tallahassee he covered seven legislative sessions, Governor Jeb Bush's administration, four hurricanes, the Terri Schiavo saga, and the 2000 presidential recount. Before coming to Missouri, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Blue Ridge Mountains, reporting and anchoring for WWNC-AM in Asheville, North Carolina. Marshall lives in Jefferson City with his wife, Julie, their dogs, Max and Liberty Belle, and their cat, Honey.