Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley moved Monday to quell spiraling anxiety among senior Republicans and top party donors that his bid to oust vulnerable Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill is slowly slipping away.
In a memo issued to campaign contributors, but also directed toward nitpicking Republican officials in Washington, Hawley revealed fresh polling that shows a close but stable race with McCaskill that has been unaffected by the deepening sex scandal engulfing embattled GOP Gov. Eric Greitens.
The survey, conducted by Hawley pollster Wes Anderson of OnMessage Inc., showed the Missouri attorney general narrowly edging McCaskill, 47 percent to 46 percent. President Trump’s job approval is strong, at 53 percent, and Republicans hold an advantage of 3 percentage points on the generic ballot.
“There is no love for Senator McCaskill among a majority of Missouri voters and it is clear that she remains one of the most vulnerable incumbents of 2018,” Anderson wrote in the Hawley campaign Memo, shared first with the Washington Examiner.
“Although Governor Greitens has taken a hit, this has not impacted the Republican brand in the state as Josh Hawley and President Trump remain in an excellent position heading into the summer,” he said.
Hawley, 38, was a prized Republican recruit. Elected to his first term as Missouri’s attorney general in 2016, his squeaky-clean image and strong conservative credentials bolstered Republicans’ confidence about unseating McCaskill heading into the midterm. But Republican insiders are now fretting that Hawley is running a complacent campaign, complaining he lacks assertiveness on the trail and hasn’t raised enough money.
The Republican brought in $1.5 million in the first-quarter fundraising period, banking $2.1 million. McCaskill dwarfed him, hauling in $3.9 million, with cash on hand of $11.5 million.
That, along with the Greitens row with its talk of impeachment, has sparked fears that McCaskill could defy the odds and win a third term. It happened six years ago. In 2012, the Democrat managed to survive when voters in deep-red Missouri deemed her Republican challenger unacceptable after he declared some forms of rape legitimate. The carping from Washington has frustrated Hawley’s advisers, who argue the campaign is on track.
Neither McCaskill’s financial advantage, nor the Greitens affair, present credible obstacles to winning in November, Anderson said in the polling memo. Indeed, the survey found that Greitens’ personal favorable ratings have plunged since January, when the scandal surfaced, while the data has shown little movement in the Senate matchup.
In the past three months, the governor’s favorable ratings have plummeted 9 points to 31 percent; his unfavorable ratings have climbed 10 points to 51 percent. It’s even worse among independents. The governor’s favorable ratings with this cohort have dropped 16 points to 27 percent; his unfavorable marks have skyrocketed 14 points, to 53 percent.
“For the first time in our polling of this race, a majority of the voters hold an unfavorable opinion of the Governor,” Anderson wrote in the memo. Hawley recently called on the governor to resign, and he is party to the investigation into alleged malfeasance by the governor in his role as attorney general.
OnMessage surveyed 600 likely voters April 16-18 via telephone interviews. The poll had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In the survey, McCaskill registered a 47 percent favorable, 48 percent unfavorable, image among all voters, in line with her position in the horse race. But among independents, her personal favorability sunk to 39 percent, with 54 percent holding an unfavorable view of her. Hawley led McCaskill among independents, 45 percent to 42 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
The polling memo did not provide data on Hawley’s favorable/unfavorable ratings.
