It's our Handy dandy guide to Election Day edition of the program.

We track the big issues and races on both sides of state line and some of the intriguing new developments, including Trump's endorsement of not one but three candidates for Missouri governor.

All that, plus the week's most impactful local news stories straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlese Gourley.

The Courtney STurner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America N.A.

Co Trustees.

The Francis Family Foundation through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis.

And by viewers like you, Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines, and it is great to have you with us just before Tuesday's big Election Day.

Hopping on the board, the week in Review bus This week is KCUR's Lisa Rodriguez and former Kansas City star newsman Dave Helling, Channel nine chief political analyst Michael Mahoney, and tracking the region's top political stories for KCUR Brian Ellison.

Tuesday is primary election Day in Kansas and Missouri, and perhaps the biggest race up for grabs is Missouri governor.

If you're having a hard time deciding who to vote for.

So is former President Donald Trump.

Apparently, he made a surprise announcement this week.

He's endorsing all three, leading Republican candidates, J. Ashcroft, Bill Eichel and Mike Kehoe.

They're all now running ads touting the Trump endorsement.

But are they privately seething behind the scenes that they didn't get Trump's exclusive stamp of approval, Michael?

Probably so.

I don't think the parade down to Mar a Lago or to Bedminster to caught his vote was nearly as intense in the governor's race as it was two years ago in the U.S. Missouri Senate race.

What I think about about this, I don't know how the people feel about this, but I think this is extremely disrespectful to the Missouri Republican Party voters, primary voters, that Donald Trump, who I don't think cares too much about who the governor of Missouri is going to be or the attorney general.

But it's disrespectful for him to act to do this non endorsement of giving his blessing to all three.

What's the point of that?

He did the same thing with the attorney general's race where he had one of his lawyers, Will Scharff.

That's on the ballot with Andrew Bailey.

He endorsed both of those.

He did the same thing with Eric.

Two years ago, Eric Schmidt and Eric Greitens.

I think it's disrespectful to the voters.

Pick one or stay out of it.

Now, if Trump can't decide between them, where does that leave voters?

We can review a viewer.

Colin writes, As a missourian, I myself, I'm torn between the three of them because they all have almost the same policies.

But is there a difference, Lisa?

I think there are certainly differences in personality.

There are some policy differences.

But I think if you are a Republican who does not support Trump, what you get from this kind of endorsement of all three is that there really is not a candidate that won't align with Trump on on some of these big issues.

They're all very deeply conservative candidates.

But we have seen, especially lately, some differences emerge when it comes to whether to incentivize Kansas City sports teams to stay on the Missouri side.

We certainly have seen a difference in personality between between Bill Seigel, who is kind of a bombastic, far right, controversial candidate in your face, and Mike Kehoe, who certainly is still very conservative but is not quite so far right and is willing to do a little bit more collaboration.

We've actually heard behind the scenes that some of our civic leaders in Kansas City are terrified if by the bill I became governor because he is again the least likely to get any cash from the state to help support the sports stadiums here.

I think that is right, although I doubt Jay Ashcroft is any more inclined than Bill Ogle to do so.

I think, again, Mike Kehoe is probably seen as a little more business friendly in that sense.

Having said that, I think you wouldn't know any of this from any of the campaign advertisements, any of the fliers.

You would think that the only issues in this race are who loves China more among the Republican candidates.

None of them are going to be selling great deals of land to China, to be clear.

I think there's the real challenge here with this endorsement from Donald Trump or this non endorsement is that what it demonstrates is that Donald Trump is not interested in being attached to a losing candidate.

And of course, he got burned in 2022 when several of the candidates he endorsed around the country did not win.

He's afraid of that happening again.

And so he's covering all of his bases.

Now, there are two Democrats running for governor on your ballot next week as well.

House Minority Leader Crystal Quade and businessman Mike Hammer, both from Springfield.

There's been the view that Democrats have little chance of winning the governor's office and for that matter, Josh Hawley's U.S. Senate seat in Missouri this November.

But does Biden's decision to exit the race in favor of Kamala Harris scramble that calculation or does it make any difference whatsoever?

Missouri is deeply red and will continue to be red, particularly, I must say, Nick, at the presidential level, one assumes.

Crystal Quade, if she is the nominee, I think, or for that matter, Mike Hammer might have an outside chance if the Republicans, for example, nominate Bill Heigl I think there might be a sense that the Democrat could appeal to moderates and centrists in a way that I could not.

But whoever the Democratic nominee is and the governor's race, Nick, will not be a favorite.

I think if there is an issue that gives Democrats any chance, it's not what's happening at the presidential level.

It's that there's a possibility in November that voters would also be voting on an abortion amendment.

And that is the issue that that I think both Kristol and Mike Hammer believe could give them the edge.

Now, with so much coverage of the presidential race right now and with the Olympics dominating TV screens, local candidates are really being starved of attention.

Could that explain why some of them are going to extraordinary lengths to try and win you over?

Eight years ago, Republican candidate for Governor Eric Greitens, started blowing things up with a machine gun in his ads.

Now, Missouri attorney general candidate Will Schaaf has found something to top him, a grenade launcher.

It's time for a missouri attorney general who will return fire.

Trump attorney Will Schaaf.

Meanwhile, in the race for governor, Bill Eichel is making national news for his ad that promises to deport every illegal migrant from Missouri.

We're throwing them in jail and sending them back where they came from.

Caramba!

It's time to take Missouri back.

Well, for all the indignation these ads have caused, is there any evidence they're being successful?

For instance, Be Legal was polling at about 8% back in February.

Now we're seeing stories that it's a close race between him and the other candidates.

Possibly it's having some effect on the most conservative Republican voters.

I will say, though, after the primary, I wonder about the negative impact it's going to have on any effort to attract moderate Republicans or or Democrats.

Which which, of course, they will want to do.

I think the reality, Nick, is that these kinds of advertisements are not they're not new, as you pointed out.

I think it's an evolution of something that's already been happening.

I wonder if the pendulum at some point isn't going to have to swing back because voters, I think you're hearing more and more are frustrated by it.

Certainly, there have been a number of Republicans who've been willing to call Bill Angle's ads racist, but they wouldn't do it if they weren't successful, would they?

Well, that's one.

And then the other thing is that for everybody that are clutching their pearls about that ad, or Holly REDDER, who's running for secretary of state, who's got a gun ad as well.

Remember the base here?

Remember who they're pitching to?

There were pitching to Republican primary voters who are the the heart and soul of the party.

These are the activists and they don't find these ads offensive at all.

In fact, they they enjoy them.

And I think part of that enjoyment is when the media does kind of latch on to these and when they go viral and when there's this big outrage over it, that is I mean, that's exactly the point.

That's exactly the groups they're hoping to to anger with this.

And it is kind of it's kind of with a gleeful delight.

They watch the game.

But I just as a counterpoint, I think that's true.

But the other side of that coin is when everybody uses a gun, it loses its effectiveness.

I have seen it before.

I tried, you know, ten years ago, it had a shock value that would, I think, engage the more Republican, more conservative Republican voters.

But now everybody I mean, then it's a blowtorch and then it's, you know, a hand grenade and then it's a stunt.

And at that point, the shock value goes away and it becomes sort of a road exercise that I don't think moves that many votes.

I disagree with Dave on this.

I think it appeals right down the gut to the primary Republican voter base.

Note There are dozens of state legislative and local congressional races on your ballot on Tuesday.

While the issues in each race differ lower and older is on the ballot pretty much everywhere.

Last week on our program, we hosted the candidates for Jackson County prosecutor.

But on the other side of state line, there's another hotly contested campaign underway for Johnson County.

District Attorney Steve Howe is facing his first primary challenge since being elected 16 years ago.

Douglas County assistant D.A.

Dave Greenwald is running against him.

There's also two Democrats wanting to unseat Howe.

Now, I was looking through campaign leaflets from Howe and he says crime has gone down 20% since he took over the job.

So why has he got not one but three people running against him?

Well, I think Dave Greenwald has some concerns with the way the office is run.

He thinks that Steve Howe has not efficiently and effectively addressed the fentanyl crisis, whatever that is, in Johnson County.

He said that he has told us at the store that he's concerned about the relation between police agencies and the prosecutor's office.

On the Democratic side, Nick.

There are concerns that Steve Howe has been too lenient on police brutality cases and misbehavior cases both of the candidates on the Democratic side are extraordinarily well qualified.

It's a very important race that bears watching.

And I should point out, by the way, we do have a voter guide.

We've been working with Casey Warren, our other public media partner, is you can see that voter guide.

We break that all of these races.

You can see the background of these candidates.

Casey Voter guide dot org.

Casey Voter Guide dot org.

I think Dave is exactly right.

I think the Democratic lean that is starting to happen more and more in Johnson County is going to perhaps show itself in this race.

I think Steve Howe is a is a weak candidate, if only because he's been in the role for 16 years.

And people just feel like things need to change after a while.

David Greenwald with his focus on drug enforcement in Douglas County, where he currently serves as an assistant D.A., that that actually is probably a strong place to approach the Steve Howe campaign from.

But I do think the Democrats will have a very strong chance, the best chance they've had in decades in Johnson County.

Now, the Johnson County sheriff is also in the middle of a contentious campaign.

I'm Sheriff Calhoun.

And there's nothing more important to me than the safety of citizens of Johnson County.

Sheriff Calvin Hayden is facing his first challenge since being elected eight years ago.

Go to his website and he'll tell you that unlike in other communities, crime is down in areas controlled by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office.

And they answer your 911 calls within 9 seconds, a far cry from more than one minute long wait times experienced by Kansas City residents.

So why is Hayden being challenged for the first time by someone who actually used to work in his office?

Undersheriff Doug Bedford Because the crime problem, if it exists in Johnson County, is not the issue with Calvin.

Hey, the issue with Calvin.

Aiden is his long investigation of alleged voter fraud in Johnson County, which he dropped after bungling several parts of that investigation.

He has spoken to very, very conservative sheriffs related groups that, among other things, believe that sheriffs are more powerful than the president of the United States.

He has problems in the way his office responded to COVID.

He is an extraordinarily polarizing and difficult figure.

And Doug Bedford is very qualified and may be the favorite in that race.

Dave is right on this.

The issue here is not anything that seems to be the typical sheriff sort of sort of issues.

It is this investigation into into the 2020 elections and and how it was conducted by by Sheriff Hayden's office and the fact that it hasn't produced anything in terms of any sort of serious prosecution.

And people are wondering if there's smoke here, we can't even see the smoke, much less even detect the fire.

Now in Missouri, Kansas City police funding is on the ballot again on Tuesday.

Voters statewide will be asked to increase the amount of money it allocates to the KPD from 20 to 25% of its budget.

If you thought you already voted on this at the last election, you did.

But a judge ordered a redo of the vote as the original ballot language claimed the change wouldn't cost money when it does.

That said Matt Quentin Lucas claims the city routinely spends at all more than 25% of the budget on police now.

So if that's the case, why is Quinton Lucas so upset about this?

Well, I think it doesn't ever allow the city to to spend any less than 25% of the budget.

But I think what this boils down to is, as we've talked about many times on this program, local control, one of the only pieces of control that Kansas City has over its police department is how much to spend.

They allocate the budget and then have no say in how that budget is spent.

And so this measure essentially takes away that last piece of control that the city has over its police department.

So less about money and more about the principle of the matter here.

Bryan.

I think that's exactly right.

I will say, though, I'm not sure that I've detected quite the level of outrage that you have from Kansas City leaders.

I'm I am surprised, as I was surprised the first time this was on the ballot, how little opposition there has been, how little organization there has been to to on the statewide level, how little effort to defeat this proposal.

And I mean, we've seen plenty of effort to campaign for it.

Senator Tony Lukemire, who represents part of the northern part of Kansas City, he lives in Parkville, has been on radio in Saint Louis, on radio around the state campaigning for this proposal.

But but who is opposing it?

There's not really an organized effort.

And everyone in Missouri gets to vote on this.

Michael, even if you're in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and southeast Missouri.

Yeah, because it is a constitutional amendment, that's why.

And if Kansas City and the people over here say, why is that happening?

The same thing happened several years ago when the local control of the Saint Louis Police Department was voted on by Kansas citizens and everybody else in the state for the very same same reason.

And I mean and efforts at trying to remove local control or reinstate local control of Missouri out of the Kansas City Department, you know, it comes up from time to time, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Now, if you support more money going to the police, would you also be willing to dig deeper into your own pocketbook to give officers a raise?

Vote as an independent?

So being asked on Tuesday to support a permanent quarter cent sales tax to boost officer pay.

Ironically, advocates of the tax say Kansas City has put them in the awkward financial spot by recently giving CP officers a 30% pay raise.

So Kansas City is to blame for why independence can't keep its police officers.

Lisa.

I mean, possibly we we've seen similar effects for teacher pay raises, for example, in the last year.

One school district raises its pay for teachers claims.

Our teachers are the best paid in the region and then one by one, school districts around have to have to be competitive.

So, sure, I think that's a valid reason to say we need this raise now is a sales tax the best mechanism to to increase pay or should that come from within the city's budget?

I think that's the quote.

If you feel good about raising your taxes to get police officers a pay raise, how do you feel about dipping into your pocket a little deeper to pay for a jail in Platte County?

Voters are being asked on Tuesday to support a half cent sales tax to double the size of the county jail, According to the sheriff, the Platte County Jail is packed to the max and there housing inmates in three other counties.

They're even now asking jails in Joplin and Springfield to take Platte County detainees.

Isn't that's what's already happening in Kansas City, Dave?

Yes, I mean, in Jackson County and in Kansas City.

Yes.

In part because of overcrowding problems.

And it does force judges to make some pretty difficult decisions sometimes in terms of sentences in jails in Jackson County, most of the prisoners behind bars are awaiting trial.

It's not a punishment place for that.

Those defendants end up in the state penitentiary system, but jails everywhere are overcrowded.

Now, I will tell you something, Nick, that I was told early in my career, like 50 years ago by someone who worked on these issues, jails are always overcrowded.

You can double the space and it will still be overcrowded because if you have 100 beds now, judges will just send 100 people to jail.

And if there are only 50 beds, he'll send 50 or she will send 50 people to jail.

Jails always fill up.

You can never quite get a hold of this problem.

I think this is also a reality of how politics go in Platte County and perhaps in some of the other suburban areas around the Garden City metro that we don't talk about as often.

There is a tension between a desire to be tough on the law and order.

Well, also not wanting to pay any more than absolutely necessary in taxes.

And so it manifests itself in debates over, you know, over the jail.

And what will happen with the jail?

Will the jail be used to house other counties the way that previously the county has been sending prisoners out of its own bounds?

So I think a lot of tension is going to continue to play out around that, probably even after the election.

Now, did you know that child care is also on the ballot on Tuesday?

Missouri voters are being asked to exempt child care centers from property taxes.

I'm assuming the goal here is to make child care more affordable and available in Missouri.

That is the goal.

And Missouri has and many states have an extreme shortage of child care options.

I'm saying this as someone who just dropped a baby off to daycare for the first time this week and and the struggle to find it is very real now is is a property tax exemption the way to go?

It certainly has its opponents who argue that that it could raise property taxes in that very area.

But child care is expensive.

It's expensive to operate, it's expensive to pay for.

And and lawmakers have been working for years to try to find a solution.

What is the downside of a property tax exemption, though, to actually make child care more affordable?

It will cost local government some money.

You know, the state auditor did a study of this proposal some time ago and found, for example, that Clay County thinks that if this passes, it will lose about $700,000 a year across all jurisdictions, schools, Clay County, the state of Missouri, which is not insignificant.

That's that's real money.

But Lisa is exactly right.

The idea here is to use this exemption to lower the cost and improve the availability of child care.

Now, the last time we talked about this on the show, I got a nasty email from someone who said, look, there's no guarantee that the tax break given to child care operators will actually go for lower costs, that it might just go into the pocket of the operator or other people.

So that's a legitimate criticism as well.

But we've heard a lot of that is including the fact that they are, you know, many child care facilities are actually for profit companies.

And so the idea that we want to give them a property exemption, why not private gyms that are also trying to help with the health and well-being of people?

Right.

Why should they pay any more?

Why not?

Why not also other other sort of workforce development priorities, trade, people who do training and particular trades.

The state has often poured a lot of economic development money into things that they think improve their their workforce and their access to more employees for the state.

So the child care thing fits into that.

But but there's a whole lot of other programs that might be similar and maybe will be suggested in coming elections.

Yeah, this is this goes back to the classic sort of libertarian thought.

Government ought not to be in the business of picking winners and losers.

Now, we before we get to our big stories missed, we can't get all of these different races.

What are the other what is the other single race that deserves attention before voters go to the polls on Tuesday in Kansas and Missouri?

Well, we have talked about it on the program before, but not much today.

And that's the Missouri attorney general race.

I think the Republican primary for that race is going to have a lot to say about the future of how certain laws are enforced, how how aggressive the state is with regard to the federal government's policies and just the tone of state government and politics.

I agree with the attorney general's race for all the reasons that Bryan expressed.

And then the other one, just in terms of those of us who love to follow politics for the art and the sport sport of it, the Missouri Attorney General's office has been an incredible launching pad for politicians in this state.

And it's been like that for most of the 50 years that I have been in this state.

And when somebody gets in the AG's office here, there's a strong possibility that they're going to end up making serious runs for governor, the United States Senate for for Congress.

It's a very important office from that alone.

I will I agree.

And I'll add the Missouri secretary of state's race, another one with a bunch of candidates in there vying to be the top election official at a moment when elections and election security is a huge issue in our states.

And we've profiled, again all of those candidates.

You can look at Casey Voter Guide dot org.

I'm keeping an eye on the third District Kansas Republican primary to face Sharice Davids in the fall.

Prasanth Reddy I want to make sure I get these right.

And Karen Cernovich I think is how you pronounce it.

That's an interesting race to me.

The Republicans think they still have an outside shot at the third.

And so we'll see how that primary turns out.

And then, of course, as I've talked about on this show, the seventh Missouri Senate race between Pat Contreras and Patty Lewis bears watching as well.

Now, when you put a program like this together every week, you can't get to every story grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story we missed?

Notorious Kansas City pharmacist Robert Courtney is released from prison more than two decades after being convicted of diluting 98,000 drug prescriptions for extra cash.

At his trial, Courtney was described as a real life monster in a white coat.

A three year old dies after falling from an eighth floor window at an independence high rise.

It's too hot.

The three biggest words of the week, a new ban on income discrimination in Kansas City.

Housing finally takes effect this week, six months after it was voted on at City Hall.

It blocks landlords from using a person's credit score or criminal history to deny housing.

It also requires them to accept government housing vouchers as payment.

Landlords claim the new rules will only drive up rental costs.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says 911 wait times are now in crisis, but there's still no consensus on what to do about it.

The police department's own figures show an average hole time of one minute, 37 seconds.

You can't be a city that's hosting a good World Cup and other big events, and people call 911 and can't actually get an answer.

A federal judge strikes down Missouri's revolving door lobbying ban.

The voter approved measures stop lawmakers from resigning their seats and immediately signing up as a lobbyist the next day.

The judge claims it violates the First Amendment.

And boy, that happened fast.

The NFL is back.

The Chiefs fly to Florida next week for the first preseason game against the Jaguars.

Lisa Rodriguez, did you pick one of those stories or something?

Completely.

A lot of important stories there.

But but last night, another big storm rolls through the area, another mass wave of power outages.

It feels like every time there's a major storm, we have hundreds of thousands of people without power.

Maybe this is a story that I want to see rather than one that we missed, which is what is how what is the state of our power grid and will this happen every single time there's a big storm?

We need to do a three hour special on that coming up.

Lisa.

Thank you, Dave.

Bobby Witt Junior, the shortstop for the royals, has had a July.

That's for the history books.

He's hit nearly 500 for the entire month.

That's breathtaking.

It's possible that Kansas citizens are watching the best baseball player in America and the best football player in America at the same time.

That's something to be savored.

Michael, the 911 controversy here.

This is something that this is basic core services that citizens expect their governments to to respond to.

And they were they want it responded to quickly and efficiently.

And city hall needs to jump on that and not only deal with it, but deal with it correctly.

They keep saying they'll be dealing with it and it never happens.

But.

But they don't.

They need to deal with it correctly.

I mean, go with the Olympics, Nick.

This has been a week where the whole country has been able to unite around something positive, even as things that are tending to divide us in other arenas are playing out.

And I am all for nerdy gymnasts, winning medals for their team.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of KCUR's Lisa Rodriguez and Michael Mahoney from Channel nine.

KCUR's Brian Ellison and former star newsman Dave Helling.

Before we leave you.

Ten years ago, the nation watched as the city of Ferguson, Missouri, erupted following the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown.

Remember that?

We marking the 10th anniversary with a televised town hall this Monday night with local law enforcement and civil rights leaders, including the police chief.

You can join us at the Church of the resurrection downtown for the state of policing ten years after Ferguson.

This Monday night at six, all the details are on our website at Kansas City PBS dot org slash events and I'm Nick Ha from all of us here.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.