CommentaryNovember 13, 2026By Walter Hayes

Take Ground: There's Only an Up or Down

Missouri Republicans lost ground November 3. Walter Hayes on why we got comfortable, why there's only an up or down, and how we climb back.

Missouri Republicans lost ground on November 3. I want to say that plainly, learn from it, and get back to work. The way back is a climb. But it's a climb we can make.

On November 12 I gave a speech called "Take Ground." I opened it with words Ronald Reagan spoke at CPAC on March 1, 1975, right after the 1974 midterms. The turnout line is about 1974, not this year:

"Since our last meeting we have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. But the significance of the election was not registered by those who voted, but by those who stayed home. If there was anything like a mandate it will be found among almost two-thirds of the citizens who refused to participate."

Fifty-one years later, it sounds familiar.

What we lost

Jefferson City. Democrats flipped 16 Missouri House seats and 2 Missouri Senate seats. Republicans still hold the House 95 to 68 and the Senate 22 to 12, but the two-thirds supermajority is gone in both chambers.

Congress. Democrat Fred Wellman defeated Ann Wagner in the 2nd Congressional District.

Amendment 3. Voters rejected it. It would have repealed the 2024 abortion-rights amendment. That's a real setback for the pro-life cause.

Nationally. Six DSA-backed candidates won U.S. House seats, all in reliably Democratic districts. With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, that makes eight.

Statewide numbers are unofficial until the Missouri Secretary of State certifies them.

To the socialists celebrating: you won elections. You haven't shown that more government control makes people freer or their families more secure. I don't know of a place or a time in history where it has.

We'll respect the results and challenge the ideas. My friend Darin Chappell gave me the best definition of a conservative I know: a conservative conserves what we know works. The Constitution works. A free market works. Unalienable rights work. Freedom works.

We got comfortable

Two years ago I said we needed to take the fight to the Democrats. Folks didn't want to hear it. We'd won big, we had supermajorities, and it felt safe to coast.

I don't think we lost because our ideas are bad. I think we got lazy and comfortable, and we got used to governing from the top down.

Take initiative petition reform. For years we heard it was a top priority. What we got was Amendment 4, passed in a September 2025 special session, and it went further than the versions lawmakers had debated before. Leadership handed it down and said vote yes. In August voters threw it out about 80 to 20. That was poor leadership.

I don't say that to collect an apology. An apology won't win the next election. Changed habits might.

I know what losing feels like. I lost my own House District 162 primary this year, and I own that. It doesn't excuse me from the work, and November doesn't excuse any of us.

There's only an up or down

In "A Time for Choosing" on October 27, 1964, Reagan said:

"Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down"

That's the question behind my book, Right Side Up. Which way are we headed? Toward citizens who govern their government, or citizens who ask its permission?

The programs have changed since 1964. The question of who decides hasn't. When someone promises government will make something affordable, ask:

Who pays?

Who decides what's available?

What happens when it costs more than promised?

Can a family choose something else?

Ask Republicans the same questions. A Republican vote for needless spending still spends your money. Our principles can't depend on whose name is on the bill.

And bring answers: clear the barriers to building homes, the permits and rules that block a new business, and put families ahead of protecting another program.

Bold colors

In 1975 Reagan called for a party raising a banner of "no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people." Bold colors don't mean louder insults. They mean a clear position and the willingness to defend it: constitutional limits, honest budgets, private property, religious liberty, the right to life, public safety and equal treatment under the law.