page_title: Vicky Hartzler
section_title: 2010
hierarchical_section_title: Vicky Hartzler / U.S. House of Representatives / 2010
caption_attribution_description: English: Hartzler and family at swearing in ceremony
context_page_description: Vicky Jo Hartzler is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Missouri's 4th congressional district since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the Missouri State Representative for the 124th district from 1995 to 2000.
  Her congressional district comprises a large swath of the western-central part of the state, anchored in Columbia and stretching to the eastern and southern Kansas City suburbs. The district also includes the cities of Sedalia, Warrensburg, Moberly and Lebanon.
context_section_description: After almost a decade out of politics, Hartzler entered the Republican primary for Missouri's 4th congressional district, which at the time was held by 17-term Democratic incumbent Ike Skelton. She won a seven-way primary with 40 percent of the vote.
  In the November 2, 2010 general election, Hartzler won with 50.43% of the vote. She is the first Republican to represent this district since 1955, and only the second since the Great Depression. She was also the second Republican woman elected to Congress from Missouri, after Jo Ann Emerson, with whom she served from 2011 to 2013. However, she is the first who was not elected as a stand-in for her husband; Emerson was originally elected to serve out the final term of her late husband, Bill Emerson. Republicans had been making gains in the district for some time; it gave John McCain 62 percent of the vote in 2008 while simultaneously reelecting Skelton, and Republicans hold most of the district's seats in the state legislature. She won primarily by running up her totals in the more rural areas of the sprawling district.
  She ran on a conservative platform, voicing support for tax cuts and spending cuts. She opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.
caption: Hartzler and family at swearing in ceremony at the United States House of Representatives
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