Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, once the heavy favorite to win re-election in Missouri, is now in one of the nation’s closets contests, one that could decide the fate of the Senate majority.
“This has been one of the big surprises of this Senate election season,” University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato told the Washington Examiner.
Blunt, 66, has seen his poll numbers slide in the Show Me State even as GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s numbers have climbed.
A new poll released Wednesday by Monmouth University Polling Institute found Blunt clinging to a tiny lead over his 35-year-old Democratic opponent, Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander. The same poll found Trump leading Democrat Hillary Clinton by five points, up from a virtual tie in August.
The poll showed Blunt with 46 percent of the vote and Kander with 44 percent. Less than two months ago, Monmouth polling showed Blunt leading Kander 48-43, and a Remington Research poll taken in early September showed Blunt with 7-point lead.
Blunt’s shrinking poll numbers have led race analysts to move his seat away from a relatively safe rating and into “toss up” territory, and it increases the odds that Democrats will win enough seats to retake the Senate Majority the GOP has held since 2015 by a 54-46 margin.
Democrats need five seats to win the gavel. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates six GOP seats as pure toss-up races, including Missouri.
Blunt’s poll numbers appear to be moving independently of Trump, who remains popular in Missouri. Blunt has maintained his endorsement of Trump even while other vulnerable GOP incumbents around the nation have revoked their support in the wake of a leaked tape showing Trump making lewd comments about women.
According to Monmouth, however, “the vast majority” of Missouri voters are not aware of Blunt’s endorsement of Trump.
Trump may be a non-factor, but voters are noticing Kander who has operated an energetic and well-funded campaign in a year where voters appear to favor candidates from outside of the Washington establishment.
“At 35, Kander presents a sharp generational contrast to the 66 year-old incumbent,” Cook Political Report Senior Editor Jennifer Duffy noted in a recent column explaining the decision to move the race to the toss-up category. “Kander and his Democratic allies have been making the case that Blunt has been in Washington too long, and has in fact profited from his time in Congress where he spent seven terms in the House before winning an open Senate seat in 2010.”
Kander, a former Army officer and Afghanistan war veteran, may have gained some ground with the the help of an ad televised statewide in which he assembled an AR-15 rifle while blindfolded and then dared Blunt, who is endorsed by the NRA but never served in the military, to do the same.
“Kander is an attractive candidate who’s run a smart campaign, top to bottom,” Sabato said. “It may also be that Blunt didn’t take him seriously enough, at least early on.”
Blunt’s team is still hoping that Kander won’t be able to find the votes. Greg Blair, deputy communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Kander’s politics are too liberal for Missouri voters, who in recent election cycles have typically voted Republican.
Blair said Democrats are shifting their focus to Missouri because they have not been able to gain ground in Ohio and Florida, where Republican Sens. Rob Portman and Marco Rubio have established solid leads over Democratic challengers.
“They’ve resorted to spending their money on Jason Kander, a liberal who falls far outside of Missouri’s mainstream,” Blair said.
