Top presidential contenders target Missouri before primary

David A. Lieb, Associated Press

Published 3:32 pm, Monday, March 14, 2016

Photo: Nati Harnik, AP

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump describes how he was ready to punch a person who rushed the stage during an election rally earlier in the day, as he speaks to a crowd in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, March 12, 2016. less ^[1]

Photo: Nati Harnik, AP

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign event at the Nelson-Mulligan Carpenters' Training Center in St. Louis, Saturday, March 12, 2016.

Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP

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Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign rally at the Adam's Mark Hotel Saturday, March 12, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo.

Photo: Charlie Riedel, AP

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The top presidential contenders have been targeting Missouri in the final days before Tuesday's primary elections.

Republicans Donald Trump ^[3] and Ted Cruz and Democrats ^[4] Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders ^[5] all have held recent rallies in Missouri, including a scheduled Monday night event by Sanders in St. Charles ^[6] on the eve of the election. All also have been airing TV ads.

Democrats are competing for a share of 71 Missouri delegates at stake Tuesday. Republicans will be allotting 52 delegates to the candidates who get the most statewide or congressional district votes. Primaries also are being held Tuesday in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina, all of which offer more delegates than Missouri.

Here's a look at Missouri's presidential primaries:

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RALLIES AND PROTESTS

The top four contenders had not often been to Missouri until the final few days before the primary elections. Since Friday, they have held or scheduled 10 events around the state. Passions and emotions have run high at some events, particularly those featuring Trump.

At a rally Friday in St. Louis, the billionaire businessman was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. He heckled back, denouncing them as weak "troublemakers" and suggesting they "go home to mommy." Police arrested more than 30 people on charges of general peace disturbance. Later that day, Trump canceled a scheduled event in Chicago because of security concerns over protesters.

But Trump went ahead with a campaign rally Saturday in Kansas City, where he again was interrupted by protesters. Outside the theater hall where his rally was held, police used pepper spray to disperse a crowd. Police said two groups of about 200 people had been preparing to fight. Four people were arrested.

At weekend rallies around the state, other candidates denounced the clashes at Trump's events, faulting both protesters and Trump.

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MAKE A CHOICE

Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. All registered voters can participate in Missouri's presidential primaries. They will have to pick a ballot for one party — Democrat, Libertarian or Republican — but there is no party registration and no records of which party people choose. The Republican ballot will feature 12 candidates, the Democratic ballot nine and the Libertarian ballot five. Some of those candidates no longer are running but remain on the ballot because they halted their campaigns after Missouri's Dec. 29 filing deadline. Election officials are predicting that about 34 percent of Missouri's registered voters will cast ballots.

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DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES

Missouri has 84 delegates to the Democratic National Convention ^[7]. Thirteen of those are superdelegates — party leaders or officials who can support any candidate they choose. That leaves 71 delegates that could be apportioned based on the primary results. Forty-seven of those will be divvied out based on how well candidates do in each of Missouri's eight congressional districts, with anyone getting at least 15 percent of the vote qualifying to receive delegates. T he remainder of the delegates will be divided proportionately among candidates based on their statewide vote, with 15 percent again the minimum threshold to get delegates. That means Clinton and Sanders are both likely to receive some of Missouri's delegates.

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REPUBLICAN DELEGATES

Missouri has 52 delegates to the Republican National Convention ^[8]. The state Republican Party ^[9] is awarding delegates only to ca ndidates who are still actively campaigning — Cruz, Trump, John Kasich ^[10], Marco Rubio ^[11] and Jim Lynch< a href="#readabilityFootnoteLink-12" class="readability-DoNotFootnote" style="color: inherit;">^[12]. If anyone receives a majority of the votes cast for active candidates, he would get all 52 delegates. If not, delegates would be awarded as follows: 12 for the candidate who gets the most votes statewide, and five for every congressional district a candidate wins. That means one candidate could get all of Missouri's delegates if he wins every congressional district. Or the delegates could be split among candidates depending on who fares best in each of the state's eight districts.

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PRIMARY REVIVAL

Missouri's presidential primary will be the first meaningful one since 2008. In that year, Barack Obama ^[13] narrowly edged out Clinton in the statewide vote, but they ended up splitting the available delegates. Republicans used a winner-take-all approach in 2008, meaning John Mc Cain ^[14] got all of Missouri's delegates even though he received just one-third of the total votes in a close contest against Mike Huckabee ^[15] and Mitt Romney ^[16].

In 2012, Missouri's primaries lacked much significance. As the incumbent, President Obama faced little Democratic competition. Republicans didn't use the primary — held in February that year — as the basis for awarding delegates. That's because they would have been penalized by the national party for holding a vote too early in the campaign season. Instead, Republicans used later caucus meetings to allot their delegates.

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