Missouri Auditor Fitzpatrick Favored a Tax Measure Voters Rejected by 60 Points
Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick backed a ballot measure voters crushed by 60 points, yet is still expected to win reelection easily.
Missouri voters rejected Amendment 5 — a proposal to phase out the state income tax — by a margin of roughly 60 percentage points, one of the widest defeats of any major ballot measure in recent Missouri history. State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick had publicly supported the amendment, putting him on the losing side of a lopsided public verdict. Despite that alignment, Fitzpatrick is widely expected to win his reelection bid comfortably. The disconnect highlights how statewide ballot results and individual candidate fortunes can diverge sharply, particularly in a state with strong partisan sorting. Fitzpatrick has served as Missouri State Auditor since 2019, when he was appointed to fill the seat, and subsequently won election to a full term. The auditor's office is a nonpartisan watchdog role focused on government finances, though its occupants are elected on partisan tickets. The question heading into election day is whether voters who rejected the tax phaseout so decisively will factor Fitzpatrick's support of it into their down-ballot choices — or whether party affiliation will, as is increasingly common in statewide races, outweigh any individual policy disagreements.
Why it matters
The race tests whether voters in a deeply partisan state will hold an official accountable for a specific policy position when the ballot measure itself was overwhelmingly rejected. The outcome could signal how much issue-level accountability still exists in down-ballot statewide elections.
What's next
Fitzpatrick's margin of victory — or any unexpected tightening of the race — will indicate how much the Amendment 5 association moved votes against him.
Key facts
- Amendment 5 proposed a phaseout of Missouri's state income tax and was rejected by approximately 60 percentage points
- Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick publicly supported Amendment 5 before the vote
- Fitzpatrick is nonetheless projected to win reelection by a comfortable margin
- Fitzpatrick has held the auditor's office since a 2019 appointment, later winning a full elected term
- The auditor's race is a partisan election despite the office's nonpartisan government-watchdog function
Bias & framing notes
Only one source was available, a regional outlet framing the story around an open electoral question ('Will it matter?'). The piece leans toward skepticism that voters will punish Fitzpatrick, but the framing is analytical rather than explicitly partisan. With a single source and no corroborating reporting, confidence in specific margin figures and projections cannot be fully verified.
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