On a busy July day along Hannibal’s Main Street, the trolley that tours the birthplace of Mark Twain crept along as the historic district slowly filled with visitors.
Preparing for business, Frank North organized novelty postcards in his shop, Becky’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor and Emporium. The shop’s namesake is the fictional Becky Thatcher from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
“We’re a small business,” North said. “We’ve been catering to the visitors of Hannibal now for 24 years here.”
When he’s not serving ice cream, North is a member of the Northeast Missouri Conservative Club. Nevertheless, he’s hesitant to talk about politics.
“Being able to afford gasoline, groceries, that sort of stuff — that’s high on people’s minds,” North said. “We just want someone thinking of us when they’re making their legislation and watching over the bureaucracy.”
A few doors down, Michelle Huseman stocks shelves at her business, the Mark Twain Book & Gift Shop. Huseman, a Democrat and retired school teacher, said when it comes to politics, education is a top issue for her.
“I’m a retired school teacher. Taught for 30 years,” Huseman said. “Making sure that public schools are represented and funded correctly? That’s very important.”
On different ends of the political spectrum, North and Huseman agree: Most of Missouri’s political energy is focused elsewhere, in places like Kansas City and St. Louis.
They also agree that Rep. Sam Graves, their elected official in Washington, is hard to communicate with — although they have different perspectives about this.
“We don’t see him much — but we’re kind of in the not-so-populated end of the district and that’s OK,” North said. “We hear from him about what he’s trying to do in D.C. and we hope he’s doing what he’s been elected to do.”
Huseman said she’s reached out to Graves’ office several times about her concerns over education funding and only got boilerplate email responses.
“When you call his office, when you call to talk to him: You can’t. You can never talk to someone,” she said.
Heavily favored to win
Located in the northeast portion of Missouri’s 6th Congressional District, Hannibal accounts for about 16,900 of the district's population of 770,000. In all, the district encompasses 37 counties and stretches from the Kansas to the Illinois border.
The 6th District hasn’t always been this big. Missouri lost a congressional seat during redistricting following the 2010 Census in part because the population shrank in several rural northern Missouri counties. That’s when the 6th District was expanded to include most of the state north of the Missouri River.
Of the dozen voters the Midwest Newsroom interviewed in Hannibal in late July, many shared the feeling that this part of the state is forgotten by leaders in Washington.
“Our problems are completely different,” Huseman said. “It’s frustrating.”
In addition to her worries about funding for schools in the Hannibal area — the school district is facing a budget shortfall— Huseman said access to affordable housing is also an overlooked issue.
Graves has represented the people of Hannibal and the rest of the district for more than 23 years, securing his seat 11 times. Voters here overwhelmingly went for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
On Aug. 6, Missouri voters go to the polls in a primary election. Graves, a native of Tarkio in the state’s northwest corner, is running for the 12th time, with three candidates from across the 6th District putting up long-shot primary challenges.
Brandon Kleinmeyer of the Kansas City area, Freddie Griffin Jr. of Hamilton and Weldon Woodward of Novelty are the contenders.
In the 2022 Missouri primary, Graves won the nomination with 75% of the vote and went on to retain his seat easily. The 2024 primary will mark Kleinmeyer’s second try for Graves’ seat. In the 2022 primary, Kleinmeyer captured less than 8% of the votes cast.
Terry Smith, a political science professor at Columbia College in Missouri, said there’s almost no chance Graves won’t win his primary, citing the Cook Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster that tracks races.
There are two Democrats in the primary, but as the 6th District leans increasingly red, neither Rich Gold, of Mexico, nor Pam May — like Graves, a Tarkio native — stand much of a chance against Graves in the November general election.
Kleinmeyer, who describes himself as a tax professional, said he’s running against Graves because he feels the congressman is disconnected from the district and hopes his candidacy will send a message.
“Some of the people I talked to, they just want someone that will answer them,” Kleinmeyer said. “Even if they don’t like the answer they don’t want to be ignored. And they feel like they’re being ignored right now.”
Griffin said he’s heard similar complaints during his campaign, even near Tarkio, the congressman’s hometown.
“I was in Rockport one night which is just a few miles from his house,” Griffin said. “And that was a huge complaint even right there in his own backyard. They can't get hold of him, he's not around and they can't get him to show up.”
Over the course of two months, The Midwest Newsroom made repeated requests to interview Graves. His legislative office referred us to his campaign office, which did not respond to our queries. In April, Graves appeared on the KCUR program Up To Date to talk about his call for a new postmaster general in light of customer frustration about mail delivery delays.
Feet on the ground
When reporters from The Midwest Newsroom, STLPR and KCUR visited communities across the 6th District in 2022, voters shared similar sentiments about Graves. In the southern part of the district, one voter said he had never seen Graves campaign in her area.
“I just feel like it puts him out of touch with the people within his own district by him not putting feet on the ground and coming and seeing people,” said Chris Earnshaw, a Buckner resident, in 2022. “Not just business owners, not just local politicians — people.”
Graves' campaign website appears to be dormant, with no updates since 2020. The site lists no campaign events in Missouri this year. His Facebook Page is active, focusing on the congressman’s activities in Washington. The congressman’s official House website is active and up to date, although it does not include campaign information.
Smith said Graves’ dominance is the very thing that may lead to the perception he isn’t connected to the district.
“The stronger the district is for your party, the less essential it is to be in the district all the time,” Smith said. “He’s won comfortably for many elections.”
Smith said it could be that Graves takes the district for granted, which is dangerous for politicians in areas where elections are close. That’s not the case in the 6th District, where Graves is overwhelmingly favored to win.
He said the idea that a candidate isn’t present could be just a perception.
“It’s a huge district,” Smith said. “You could show up in Hannibal and St. Joseph would not know because it’s 200 miles away.”
Missouri state Rep. Louis Riggs represents Missouri’s 5th District, which overlaps with the U.S. 6th District. Riggs serves as chair of the Marion County Republican Central Committee. He said critics of Graves’ connection to the area put too much stock in the congressman physically being in the district.
"The district’s size also makes it impossible to be everywhere at once," Riggs said. “I’ve got 38,000 people I represent. Chances are at some time, I'm going to see most of you in one way, shape, or another. You can't do that with a congressional district of almost 40 counties, it's physically impossible to accomplish that.”
Riggs believes Graves has been a good steward of the 6th District, especially Hannibal. He said the congressman’s work on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee directly affects the commerce that comes down the Mississippi River, right past the city.
He said advocating for river maintenance and promoting commerce on the Mississippi is a boost for the area, particularly for farmers who rely on the river for shipping their goods.
A review of Graves’ official House website shows he recently proposed a measure that would authorize U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects “to improve the nation’s ports and harbors, inland waterway navigation, flood and storm protection, and other aspects of our water resources infrastructure.” Since 2022, he has sponsored or cosponsored legislation on rural internet access, airport expansion and rural hospitals.
For Riggs, the challenge for this swath of northern Missouri stems from its population and distance from Jefferson City. He said counties in this region are often forgotten by the state legislature due to the shrinking population.
“For us, the enemy is distance — and that's that's a constant of where we live,” Riggs said. “But we shouldn't be punished just because ‘there aren’t a lot of us out here.’”
This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
