Missouri Senate battleground pits Jon Patterson against Keri Ingle in Jackson County

LEE’S SUMMIT — Marching up and down the front steps of split level homes in a Lee’s Summit neighborhood on a recent Monday evening, Democratic state Rep. Keri Ingle was not the first to tell residents about the upcoming election.

As her bright pink tennis shoes reached the stoop of the first house on her list, she saw a postcard with the face of House Speaker Jon Patterson — the Republican she is trying to defeat for Missouri’s 8th Senate District seat.

“We need a proven commonsense leader to defend our liberties and get things done. I am prepared to be a voice for hardworking families in the Missouri Senate,” the card reads alongside a photo of Patterson in a white doctor’s coat.

That both campaigns had already found their way to the same front porch was a small sign of how heavily contested the district has become. Ingle and Patterson are fighting for many of the same suburban Jackson County voters in one of the state’s few competitive Senate races, with millions of dollars and the fate of the Republican supermajority hanging over the contest.

Patterson, a former general surgeon who left the medical field a few years after entering the General Assembly, labels himself an “independent voice” on his campaign’s website, highlighting times he has broken with the Republican majority.

“I have not always voted along party lines,” he said in an interview with The Independent. “When I think there is something important, I’m willing to take the lead and vote how I think the district would want me to vote and what I think is best for the district and for Missouri as a whole.”

Last year, Patterson was one of 13 Republicans who voted against a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The new map, which would have split Jackson County among three congressional districts, was ultimately blocked from use in this year’s election after a prolonged state and federal court fight. 

“I’ve been very clear on this from the beginning. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Patterson said. “I would not support chopping Jackson County in three and having Kansas City be represented by someone from, potentially, Columbia.”

As speaker of the House, Patterson can prevent legislation from reaching the floor. But he said voters shouldn’t assume every measure passed by the chamber reflects his own views.

“For me to unilaterally veto things that a supermajority of the legislature wants, I don’t think would be appropriate,” he said. “In those cases, I just lead by example. I can go out, vote for my district, speak for what I think is right and have my vote.”

The 8th District covers much of eastern Jackson County, including, including the suburban cities of Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit, and stretches into Lone Jack, a city with more of a rural feel.

Alongside a Springfield-area race, the district is one of two Senate seats Democrats are targeting for a potential pickup. Winning both would cost Republicans their two-thirds supermajority in the chamber.

The race is also the most expensive among the 17 state Senate seats up for grabs, with television ad buys supporting the two candidates exceeding $1.6 million by the end of September.

Coming out of the Aug. 4 primary, Patterson had over $2.9 million on hand between his campaign and his candidate committee, according to Missouri Ethics Commission filings. Ingle had just over $500,000.

Despite the fundraising disparity, Ingle — who flipped her House seat when she was elected in 2018 — believes she has a strong chance.

“We’ve got the ground game,” she told The Independent. “We are talking to voters every single day about what matters to them and how to best reflect their values in Jefferson City.”

By late September, Ingle and a team of volunteers had reached 24,000 homes and planned to knock on 20,000 more doors before November. Patterson had his own coalition too, including former state Rep. Dan Stacy, who challenged him in the Republican primary.

Outside groups are also pouring money and manpower into the district. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group, has spent nearly $90,000 in ads and canvassing for Patterson, according to Missouri Ethics Commission filings. A political action committee with ties to pro-labor groups called Will of the People PAC spent about $68,000 on pro-Ingle messaging as of its Sept. 3 filing.

Ingle told The Independent that outside organizations had committed to reaching 100,000 doors. As she walked down Magnolia Street late last month, there were signs some had already arrived: a pro-Ingle door tag sat in a flower bed at one home on her route.

Taxes and schools

The 8th District seat has not been held by a Democrat in the past two decades, but Ingle believes the district has “moved considerably” to the left.

In the Aug. 4 primary, 17,000 voters pulled Republican ballots and voted for either Patterson or Stacy. Over 21,000 voted for Ingle on the Democratic ballot.

In the 2024 presidential election, a precinct-level analysis shows that approximately 51.7% of the 8th District voted for Donald Trump, compared to 58.5% statewide. And favor may be slipping.

A recent St. Louis University/YouGov poll found Trump and Gov. Mike Kehoe with net-negative approval ratings statewide.

The poll was administered around the time of the August primary election, when voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to phase out the state’s income tax with 83% opposed.

Progressive groups have put a spotlight on Patterson for championing and being one of the original sponsors of the proposal in the House. An ad by Will of the People dubbed him “Pay-More Patterson,” saying he “tried to play us with the Everything Tax.”

Following the ballot measure’s failure, Kehoe released a statement that the “work is far from over.” When asked if he would support a do-over, Patterson did not rule it out. Instead, he said the defeat offered a lesson.

“Voters are willing to look at things, but they want to know what it is going to be, how much and what is it going toward,” he said.

Patterson also said the amendment’s resounding defeat suggests voters are comfortable with current rates.

“I think that means that they are somewhat satisfied with the current system,” he said, pointing to tax cuts passed in 2022.

The cuts reduced the state’s top income tax rate from 5.3% to 4.95% in 2023 with a series of triggers that brought the rate down to 4.7% in 2025. The state’s fiscal analyses in 2022 predicted a loss of $764 million in general revenue annually.

Patterson voted in favor of the proposal in 2022. Ingle was absent from the vote with a health emergency.

In 2025, state lawmakers passed an additional cut, becoming the first state to repeal capital gains tax at an estimated cost of $625 million. Patterson voted in favor of the proposal while Ingle rejected it.

Pandemic-related economic conditions masked the effects of tax cuts, the liberal Missouri Budget Project wrote in July — but the state is beginning to feel the loss.

In June, State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick warned that “the state is on track to completely run out of money in the (general revenue fund) and be forced to implement emergency budget reductions.”

“(Missouri Republicans) were spending beyond their means and then they were cutting taxes, knowing that those were one-time funds that they were relying upon,” Ingle said. “Now they are saying, ‘This is a crisis. We need to cut from public education.’ Well, it is a crisis you created, so you should be held responsible for it as well.”

In recent years, the cost of the formula that determines the amount of state aid for public schools has risen, and state lawmakers have declined to keep up with its growth. The budget passed by lawmakers in May underfunds the formula by $190 million, a budget Patterson voted in favor of and Ingle opposed.

Patterson told the Independent that he’s confident the local school districts are still “funded well,” and he wouldn’t support funding schemes that put too much pressure on local schools. But with the state facing potential budget reductions across the board, he thinks schools should find ways to scale back.

“I think the schools need to be more like businesses. When there is not enough money, they should first look at becoming more efficient before saying that somebody should give them more funding,” he said.

Last week, the Lee’s Summit School District’s board of education considered how to cut costs amid budget pressures from several directions. The board voted to claw back some of a voluntary operating levy rollback.

“The reality is that decisions made at the county level and some by some of our elected officials in Jefferson City have created a situation where our students, our staff and our community are paying the price,” said board Vice President Erica Miller. “Our district has been tasked with trying to make sense of a broken system.”

Voters in the Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit school districts seem to support investing in public schools and have a history of approving bond measures and levy transfers with a strong majority.

But local voters are far from writing a blank check to school districts. In 2011, voters in the Lee’s Summit School District turned down a proposed operating tax levy increase of 89 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

Education is central to Ingle’s pitch to voters. The first impression of her campaign website is the bolded words: “lower costs, quality schools, strong communities.”

She has been one of the House’s most vocal opponents of the state’s voucher program, which uses state tax dollars to pay for private education and homeschooling expenses.

“I am not against private schools and private education,” she said. “I just don’t think they should be getting state funding.”

Patterson, by contrast, says vouchers are “a worthy investment” taking a “fraction of what we spend for the public school fund.”

“I think there is a lot of support for just getting kids the education they need, regardless of whether it is in public school, private school, homeschool, virtual school or a homeschool co-op,” he said.

There are 444 students currently receiving voucher funding in the eighth district, according to a St. Louis University PRiME Center report prepared for the State Treasurer’s Office. Over 32,000 students attend Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs public schools.

Priorities

The race, while competitive, has strayed from personal attacks — though Ingle notes it has been a “bloodbath” with jabs at each other’s voting records.

Patterson’s campaign centers “property tax relief” as a priority, with him looking to lighten the burden of rising assessments. He sees potential in a property tax package that failed in the final hours of this year’s legislative session.

Ingle was one of 61 in the House to reject the measure, though she had voted in favor of some of its elements in a separate bill. She also voted in favor of a bill in 2023 that allowed counties to freeze property tax rates for seniors.

“His attacks on me are me voting against property tax reform bills, which yeah, you’re right, I did,” she said. “Property taxes are what fund our law enforcement, our fire departments and what fund our schools.”

Beyond voting records, Patterson’s campaign has emphasized his humble beginnings and his adoption at age six. His parents raised him in Blue Springs, and he has made his family’s home in Lee’s Summit, giving him strong connections to the district’s largest municipalities.

“I’ve got a good perspective about the district because I’ve known both and I’ve lived in both and have been a part of both communities,” he said.

Ingle, raised in a military family, was accustomed to moving around before she settled in Lee’s Summit 17 years ago.

Before entering politics, she was a social worker and worked in child welfare in the Jackson County Children’s Division. She saw systemic problems, hopeful she could be part of the solution.

“When I look at pieces of legislation, I always view it through the lens of how this will impact the most vulnerable Missourians,” she said. “What will the impact be on someone who is on a fixed income that is maybe dealing with a disability or any manner of things?”

Both campaigns have drawn support from major interest groups. Ingle is endorsed by the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, the Missouri State Teachers Association and the Missouri State Council of Fire Fighters.

Patterson has endorsements from the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police and the Missouri State Medical Association, among others.

Missouri Right to Life, an anti-abortion advocacy organization, declined to endorse a candidate in the eighth district.

Patterson, who says he wants to “make Missouri as pro-life of a state as it can be,” has spoken against a measure on November’s ballots that would make abortion illegal in Missouri with exceptions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies and for survivors of rape or incest who end the pregnancy in the first 12 weeks.

Patterson said the rape and incest exception is too narrow.

“If you look at a state like Virginia, which has a 15-week limit exception for rape and incest, I think that’s the kind of place I would like to see us,” he said. “I think we’re getting there through the ballot process.”

Ingle does not think abortion should be further restricted in Missouri and has the support of abortion-rights groups like Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

Despite wide differences in positions on abortion and taxation, the two have some common ground.

Both co-sponsored legislation that would have created tax credit programs to expand access to child care. The proposal garnered wide support from Democrats and won over around half of House Republicans but ultimately stalled in the Senate this year.

Patterson believes his ability to find compromise between parties will be an asset to the Senate, which negotiates more and tends to move larger packages of legislation than the House.

“There are different constituencies that you have to work with other members, so that’s what I would really focus on: having good relationships, and doing things that are good for the district and not necessarily being in all the food fights,” he said.

If elected to the Senate, Patterson plans to mirror some of the style of the 8th District’s current Senator, Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican.

Patterson filled Cierpiot’s House seat in 2018 and Cierpiot and his wife, Connie, mentors.

Cierpiot rarely participated in filibusters and largely negotiated behind the scenes. He wasn’t one for flashy disagreements on the Senate floor, though he did feud with the chamber’s far-right “Freedom Caucus” calling the group a “clown show” on one occasion.

Ingle has cultivated a different legislative style.  In the House, Ingle has routinely called out Republicans with accusatory and sometimes emotional floor speeches.

When some Republicans opposed a bill that sought to make child marriage illegal in Missouri in 2025, she said they “should be ashamed.”

“I am sick and tired of this body saying that kids, children need to be protected, but let’s force them to get married,” she said.

On the campaign trail last week, Ingle met voters with a softer side, asking how she could help.

One woman, who was initially hesitant to answer the door, said she just wanted someone who listens.

“I just want the people who are elected to take the concerns of the citizens as important,” she said.

Ingle told her she will “uphold the will of the people always.”

“That’s what we’re looking for.”