U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt is paying attention to the presidential primary contests around the country ahead of the national party nominating conventions this summer.
However, don't expect the Missouri Republican to say how he voted almost two weeks ago, nor to comment on what the various states' election results mean.
"I'm interested in the presidential process," Blunt, a former history teacher, told reporters last Monday, after a Jefferson City campaign event. "It's sometimes entertaining. Always interesting.
"I'm just not going to get involved in trying to evaluate how that process works out."
Results of Missouri's March 15 Presidential Preference Primary have not been certified yet, so the vote totals are still considered unofficial.
However, they show tight races among Missouri voters for Democrat candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as well as for Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
If the unofficial numbers remain after certification, Clinton beat Sanders by 1,531 votes and Trump beat Cruz by 1,726 votes.
Both of those races are within the half-percent margin where a recount is automatic if a candidate requests it - but the challenge must be made to the certified results.
"I'm constantly surprised by how close Missouri was and how close it was on both sides," Blunt said, "(and) how significantly more people participated in the Republican Primary than in the Democrat Primary."
Republican voters cast 935,794 ballots in the March 15 primary, 59.78 percent of all ballots cast, while other voters took 626,075 Democrat ballots, 40 percent of the total vote.
Libertarian voters took 2,898 ballots and 682 Constitution Party ballots were voted, even though there were no presidential candidates on that ballot.
A total of 1,565,449 ballots were cast among the four parties March 15 - a substantially smaller total than ballots cast for the final presidential candidates in November general elections since 1984.
That's the same year Blunt was elected to his first of two terms as Missouri's secretary of state.
That was also the year of the most lopsided vote for U.S. president and vice president among Missouri's voters, when just more than 60 percent voted for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, compared with only 39.98 percent voting for Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.
The worst Republican loss in Missouri since 1984 came in 1992, when George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle garnered only 34.03 percent of the vote in their bid for a second four-year term.
However, the Democrats' Bill Clinton-Al Gore ticket didn't have the lopsided victory Reagan-Bush had in 1984.
The Democrats won only 44.21 percent of the Missouri vote in 1992, because the Independent team of H. Ross Perot and James Stockdale garnered votes from 21.76 percent of the Missourians casting ballots that year.
The largest percentage of Democrat votes cast in presidential elections since 1984 actually came in a losing effort, when current President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden scored a 49.63 percent margin in 2008 to the 49.76 percent victory in Missouri (but not nationally) for Republicans' John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Since Missouri has open primaries, where people are not required to vote for the same party in every election - and since the margin of victory for the winning party in Missouri has varied widely over the years - the News Tribune asked Blunt on Monday how much significance people should give to the larger GOP turnout March 15.
"Twenty years ago, when a lot more people voted on the Democratic side than the Republican side, the media always read something into that, about how much more likely it was going to be that the Democrats would do well in this state than Republicans," Blunt said. "But the fact is, both parties were competitive. Both parties were close.
"You don't have the normal argument that "All the interest was on one side, so that's where everyone voted.'"
Then he added, "I don't want to over-analyze this - I'm not sure anybody's analyzation of this election has been too effective, so far."
Blunt's Monday campaign event and interview with reporters came hours before his father, former state Rep. Leroy Blunt, died. His memorial service is to be at 11 a.m. today in Marshfield.