One meme had materialized over the last couple of weeks that ObamaCare had begun to get more popular with voters.  Using a couple of carefully-selected media polls, the White House had started this claim and the press seemed willing to ignore the avalanche of other polling showing that solid majorities favor repeal of the overhaul and the candidates who argue for repeal.  That meme died in Missouri, where almost three-quarters of the voters who came to the polls cast votes for a largely symbolic measure repudiating one of ObamaCare’s key provisions:

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama’s administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

“The citizens of the Show-Me State don’t want Washington involved in their health care decisions,” said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets. …

Missouri was the first of four states to seek to opt out of the insurance purchase mandate portion of the health care law that had been pushed by Obama. And while many legal scholars question whether the vote will be binding, the overwhelming approval gives the national GOP momentum as Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma hold similar votes during midterm elections in November.

How big was this victory?  Three weeks ago, Rasmussen polled likely voters in Missouri and asked whether they supported repeal of ObamaCare.  At that time, 58% said they supported its repeal, with 50% strongly supporting it.  Thirty-eight percent said they opposed repeal.  That 58/38 split turned into a 71/29 disaster for Democrats and Obama.

If anything, this shows that opposition to ObamaCare is growing, not receding, but that’s probably not what actually happened.  While general-population and registered-voter samples may have seen a bit of softening to ObamaCare opposition, those aren’t the people turning out to vote this year.  Even Rasmussen may be underestimating the power of ObamaCare repeal in its likely-voter turnout, as their last poll on this question in Missouri clearly underestimated (in an indirect survey, of course) the results for this election.

Bear in mind that over 315,000 Democrats turned out to cast ballots in the primary that nominated Robin Carnahan, while over 577,000 Republicans hit the polls.  That is about a 65/35 split — which means that a significant amount of Democrats either supported the ballot measure repudiating ObamaCare, or didn’t bother to cast a vote to defend the program.  Actually, Prop C got more votes than the combined voting in both Senate primaries — which tells us something even more about the passion in the electorate.

Democrats may have to hit the panic button after seeing the results from this swing state.  ObamaCare set fire to the electorate last year, and that may be an inferno for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in November.

Addendum: Carnahan should also be very, very worried.  Republicans beat Democrats in turnout almost 2-1 in the primaries for the US Senate despite the fact that Blunt won just as big as she did.  That’s a very bad sign for November for her, too.