Joe Vanover claims win in Platte County commissioner Republican primary election
Joe Vanover, the Platte County commissioner representing District 2, which covers the area of the county north of Interstate 435, won the Republican primary in his bid for a second term in Tuesday’s primary election.
Vanover, who was first elected to the seat in 2020, took 57% of votes cast, while his opponent, Melissa Steele Moran, took 43% in unofficial results released Tuesday night. Vanover claimed a margin of victory of about 700 votes.
No Democrats ran for the seat, so Vanover’s name will be the only one on the ballot in November’s election.
“It feels great to have the support of such a large majority of the voters,” he said Tuesday night. “I’ve worked hard to get the job done since being elected in 2020. I will continue to fight for common sense solutions for Platte County government.”
Vanover is a private attorney who previously worked in the Platte County Prosecutor’s Office and as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Vanover said a major issue commissioners would be tasked with working on in the coming years would be a planned expansion to the Platte County Detention Center, which required voter approval through a pair of ballot measures. Voters, however, declined to pass both measures, which would have raised funds for expanding the detention center and would have provided more mental health care and education for people in jail.
“I was shocked at the results,” Vanover told The Star Tuesday night after the primary election results were tallied. “Our situation will only get worse. More and more Platte County citizens will feel firsthand the impact of soft on crime policies.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 9:10 PM.
