Susan Montee win state's auditor's race
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Susan Montee win state's auditor's race

Date: November 8, 2006
By: Rachel Higginbotham
State Capitol Bureau

JEFFERSON CITY - Susan Montee, the Democratic candidate for state auditor, defeated Republican Sandra Thomas for the office early Wednesday morning.

Thomas conceded just a few minutes after midnight on Wednesay. According to Montee's camp, her victory makes her the first person from Buchanan County to be elected to state office for 120 years.

Montee's camp was confident that she would capture the state auditor's office as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night. Sean Spence, a spokesperson for Montee said that the confidence came from the fact that Montee defeated Thomas in Platte County, the county in which Thomas has served as auditor since 1994.

"We're going to smoke her," Spence said.

According to the secretary of state's records at 12:20 a.m. Wednesday morning, Montee was defeating Thomas 52.4 percent to 43.7 percent with 2999 of 3734 precincts reporting. The race had been much closer throughout election night, though, with the two candidates often just a few percentage points apart.

 Spence said the Montee camp was also confident because most of the precincts that hadn't reported were from the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas, which he said, tend to vote Democrat.

As Montee's camp was declaring victory, representatives from Thomas' campaign could not be reached for comment.

Montee has been the Buchanan County auditor since 2000. She has a CPA as well as a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She said she is the first state auditor to have both.

Montee, in previous interviews said that her background in both law and finance will bring a balance between performance-based and financial audits. This balance, she said, has not been emphasized in current auditor Claire McCaskill's office.

Montee also said she would like to oversee the potential sale of assets from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, and establish a liaison system for the 89 counties in Missouri that do not have auditors.

"I'd like to at least set up a system for specific problem counties," she said. "We probably won't have the resources to increase attention to a new level. But we could at least focus on specific counties." 

Libertarian party candidate Charles Baum, at the time of publication, received 2.8 percent of the vote. Progressive candidate Terry Bunker received 1.1 percent.