Chattanooga Times Free Press

Claire McCaskill loses in Missouri

- WIRE REPORTS

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — President Donald Trump might have lost ground with suburban voters during the midterm elections, but rural voters in Missouri more than made up for it by supporting Trump-backed Republican Josh Hawley, who ousted self-described moderate Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill.

Voter surveys and election results show McCaskill did well where she needed to in St. Louis, Kansas City and their suburbs, as well as in Boone County, home of the University of Missouri-Columbia. But her support tanked in rural Missouri, despite constant work to court those voters in a state Trump won by nearly 19 percentage points in 2016.

McCaskill’s loss in the small towns illustrate­s an overlooked flip side to the growing Democratic national dominance of major cities and the much-discussed inroads of Democrats in the suburbs. Republican­s have ramped up their margins in rural America since Trump took office.

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