President Trump urged a crowd of veterans on Tuesday to support Senate GOP candidate Josh Hawley in his bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, claiming Republicans desperately need to increase their majority in the upper chamber this fall.
“We need Josh badly,” Trump said during an event in Kansas City, Mo. Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the state attorney general greeted him on the tarmac for his arrival.
Hawley is running two percentage points ahead of McCaskill (48 to 46 percent), according to a Remington Research survey released earlier this month. The race has been categorized as a “toss-up” by both the Cook Political Report and veteran political analyst Larry Sabato, though McCaskill has come under new pressure recently to support Trump’s Supreme Court nominee in a confirmation vote before the November midterm elections.
Trump slammed McCaskill in his remarks for voting against the GOP tax bill that passed Congress last December.
“She voted against [it] — unbelievable. And she wants to now end it so you pay more,” he said.
Trump and Hawley are slated to attend a joint fundraiser Tuesday afternoon after the president’s event in Missouri, a state he won by nearly 20 percentage points in his 2016 contest against Hillary Clinton. The 38-year-old Republican candidate praised Trump during Tuesday’s event, encouraging the audience to send him “political reinforcements” in Washington.
“When I think about President Trump, there’s one word that comes to mind. That word is courage,” Hawley said.
