Down to the wire: Midwest Democrat McCaskill fights to stem Trump tide
ARNOLD, United States: Days before deeply polarizing US midterm elections, Democrat Claire McCaskill is tearing through Missouri, trying to entice Republican voters with her middleof-the-road politics – even as rabblerouser-in- chief Donald Trump whips up support for her rival.
As a two-term Democratic centrist in an increasingly Republican-leaning Midwestern state, McCaskill has beaten the odds before.
But she faces a herculean task Tuesday, with President Trump campaigning for her challenger Josh Hawley twice in the race’s final five days seeking to stop McCaskill’s Senate re- election bid cold.
During a campaign event in St. Louis she insisted the president’s Missouri trips showed Hawley’s desperation, but she avoided bashing Trump himself.
“I don’t get up every day trying to figure out how to fight the president,” McCaskill, 65, told AFP at the gathering hours before Trump rallied in Columbia.
“This is about standing up to the president when I think he’s wrong, like on tariffs which are brutalizing the agriculture industry in our state, (and) it’s about working with him, like on the opioids bill” to expand drug abuse prevention and treatment programs.
McCaskill’s task is two-fold in a state that chose Trump by nearly 20 points in 2016: get out the vote in deep blue territory like St. Louis – where rallying African-American support is critical – and draw enough support in conservative rural Missouri to put her over the top.
On Thursday she campaigned in St. Louis before heading northwest to O’Fallon, a town in the Republican-held second congressional district, to highlight her efforts to expand healthcare access, protect coverage for preexisting conditions and improve care for veterans.
Her challenge reflects the opposition Democrats’ across much of the Midwest, where several states including Democratic strongholds like Michigan and Wisconsin voted twice for Barack Obama, but flipped for Trump in 2016.
“We gotta hunker down here these last few days,” McCaskill – who balances a folksy demeanor with the razor-sharp language of a former prosecutor – told a crowd of 100 people.
“We’ll do some hugging before this is over.”
And perhaps some handwringing. McCaskill is fighting for her political life, neck and neck in polls with Hawley, the state’s pro-Trump attorney general who is 27 years her junior.
Trump calls Hawley a rising Republican “star,” but McCaskill insists he would only serve as a rubber stamp for the president’s agenda.
For Democrats, Missouri is an absolute: lose the state, and efforts to put a check on Trump in the Senate, where Republicans who hold a 51- 49 edge, will evaporate.
As candidates nationwide make their closing arguments, it is virtually impossible for voters to ignore Trump, who acknowledges the election is a referendum on his presidency.
Trump has thrust Missouri into the spotlight, as his multi- state final campaign blitz ends in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on election eve. Thursday in Columbia he urged Missouri to “retire far-left Democrat” McCaskill.
Hawley joined Trump on stage, and quickly linked her to failed presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Claire McCaskill has spent her lifetime in politics just like Hillary,” Hawley said.
She “wanted us to call Hillary Clinton Madam President. On November 6, we’re going to call Claire McCaskill ‘fired,’” he said. The crowd roared.
McCaskill meanwhile is hugging it out, one voter at a time.
“It’s hard,” she said of her mission. Getting Democrats enthusiastic is key, she said, “but you also have to have the trust of voters who don’t view their decision through a political lens.” — AFP