2018       General Election   Lost 51 – 45

We began thinking about 2018 races for the US Senate with ND Senator Heidi Heitkamp.  This note is in support of Claire McCaskill of Missouri.  Democrats (including those who vote with them) have 48 seats in the Senate and need three additional seats to have a majority.  The numbers in 2018 are a problem.  Democrats have many more incumbents running than do the Republicans.  Even though there are some Republican seats that are or could become vulnerable, the first order of battle is defense.

Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray and other Democratic Senators have identified three Senate candidates who are important to support.  They are all in the mid-west.  And there are some positive, early signs in the Midwest and throughout the country.

Daily Kos has done a thoughtful analysis of recent special elections — noting that specials are not necessarily clues to what might happen in a general election  In a Minnesota House District special election, H32B, the Democrat, Laurie Wagner lost by a close 53-47.  This is a consistently Republican district which Trump won 61-32.  In Delaware in a crucial election for control of the state senate, Stephanie Hansen won by 17 points, 15 more points than her predecessor, now the Lt. Gov, who beat the same Republican by 2 points in the general election in 2014. Defending the Schumer and Murray “three” is the starting point for gaining control of the Senate in 2018. 

Claire McCaskill is the incumbent senior Senator from Missouri and is seeking her third term as Senator.  Like the other members of the Schumer and Murray “three,” she is not a liberal.  For instance, her approach to reducing sexual assault in the military left responsibility with those in command rather than using Senator Gillibrand’s approach.  Senator McCaskill has had a particular interest in the military in the Senate — advocating for veteran’s services and also criticizing wasteful spending by the armed services.  She is the ranking member of the Homeland Security committee and described Donald Trump’s initial immigrant ban as based on bias and ungrounded fears.

Claire McCaskill is from a Missouri family with a long interest in women in politics.  Her mother was the first woman elected to the Columbia City Council (the city that is home to the University of Missouri) and ran and lost a race for the US Senate.  Claire McCaskill is a graduate of Hickman HS in Columbia, University of Missouri, and the University of Missouri Law School.  Her career is politics.  She has been elected to the county legislature, the state legislature, as a county prosecutor, a state auditor, and as governor.  In 2004, she lost the governor’s race to Matt Blunt (whose grandfather had beaten Claire McCaskill’s mother in the US Senate race). In 2006, she won the election to the US Senate.  She has not been unstoppable, but she has been very tough to beat.   

You can read more about Claire McCaskill on her campaign websitehttp://clairemccaskill.com/  She is a valuable, experienced Democrat — a very tough former cheerleader, HS Pep Club President, and Homecoming Queen.  Whatever you can do to help her also helps Democrats around the country. It is particularly useful to make recurring, monthly donations even if they are small.  Those donations become funds that a candidate can count on.  Furthermore, in some ways, money in 2017 is more valuable that money in 2018.  2017 money helps a candidate start fast.