November 2018 is fast approaching. There's 33 Senators who are up for reelection, and of those, 23 are Democrats. While some are in safe seats, CNN has weighed in on who they think is the most vulnerable and likely to lose their position. Their pick for the Democrats? Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).
McCaskill was elected in 2006, and won a close election over Republican Jim Talent. She failed to garner over 50 percent of the vote, and initially appeared to be vulnerable in 2012--until Republican challenger Todd Aiken said some rather unfortunate things about a woman's chances of pregnancy resulting from a rape. Needless to say, McCaskill easily won that election.
Now she's up once again for reelection, and CNN is projecting that this could be the easiest seat for Republicans to flip in the coming year. While he hasn't declared candidacy just yet, Missouri's Attorney General Josh Hawley is considered to be a likely challenger for McCaskill, and, provided he doesn't make any absurdly stupid remarks about rape and/or sexual assault survivors, could very easily win the seat. Romney and Trump both won the state by sizeable margins, and the state is pretty reliably GOP, having reelected Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) last year despite an impressive challenge from Democrat Jason Kander.
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Further, Missourians just don't seem to like her all that much. In the most recent Morning Consult rankings, McCaskill is one of the least-popular senators in the entire country, with just six of her colleagues scoring lower approval ratings than she did. That doesn't seem like a recipe for success.
It's interesting to note that of CNN's top-10 most vulnerable seats, the majority of those listed are Democrats--and the two Republicans may go down in primaries. If the Republicans play their hands right, Election Day 2018 could be a very productive day for the Senate.
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