Kansas City Star endorses Dem McCaskill in Senate race

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday won the endorsement of a major Missouri newspaper with just days to go in the state’s Senate race.

In an editorial, The Kansas City Star praised McCaskill’s willingness to break with Democrats on some issues as well as her endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents, while hitting her opponent Josh Hawley (R) for supposedly handing over his campaign to political consultants.

{mosads}”The campaign Hawley has run against ‘Millionaire Claire’ McCaskill has been unrelievedly formulaic, as well as dishonest and divisive. (No, she did not use her office to enrich her family; no, she doesn’t want to raise taxes on the middle class; and no, she isn’t for ‘open borders.’),” the Star’s editorial reads.

Hawley, the newspaper added, “is a consultant’s dream candidate, never breaking character or showing so much as a flicker of acknowledgment that any issue might be more complicated than a sound bite or that anyone across the aisle might ever have a legitimate point.”

“Especially with Hawley’s party in control of every branch of government, independence is a job requirement,” the editorial continues. “At least on this point he is forthright, saying that a vote for him is a vote for the Trump agenda. When he says he’d arrive in Washington owing no one, though, Hawley neglects to mention the president to whom he would owe his Senate seat.”

Missouri’s Senate race remains in a dead heat according to recent polling, with a RealClearPolitics average of polls showing Hawley leading McCaskill by an average of 2 points.