At the local level, Republicans control a majority of elected county offices in Southeast Missouri. In presidential elections, Democratic candidates formerly performed best in the Bootheel, an agricultural area that is the most impoverished region in the district (and the state, for that matter). It has a wide majority of whites and a significant minority of African Americans. Democrats also used to do well in the Lead Belt region, which contains a core constituency of voters who belong to labor unions, particularly in the mining industry.
