The Republican challenger in the Missouri U.S. Senate race continues to try and gain the upper hand in the contest by pressing for debates.

Josh Hawley came out of the gate last Tuesday after securing the GOP nomination with prepared remarks challenging Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill to debates “anytime, anywhere.”

At the time, he said he would be driving around the state in a flatbed truck making speeches and invited McCaskill to join him along the way for public forums.

Since then, he’s used a pickup truck to pull a flatbed trailer on which he’s given numerous stump speeches.  The trailer is sometimes adorned with bales of hay.

The McCaskill campaign was quick to use twitter to point out the difference between a flatbed truck and a trailer on twitter and advise Hawley she’d see him at a debate.

Note to Yale law grad: the thing you are standing on is a trailer. The picture below it is a flatbed truck. See you at our first debate! 😬 pic.twitter.com/w9Ib72fbQ4

— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) August 8, 2018

A week after the August primary, Hawley is still making debates a centerpiece of his messaging.  He held a press call Tuesday where he specifically invited reporters to push McCaskill to “come out of the shadows” and debate him.

Hawley argues that the Democrat is out of step with Missouri’s conservative values and is afraid to debate.  “If I had voted against my state on judges, on the border wall, on taxes, on health care, on just about everything, I don’t think I’d be looking forward to facing tough questions either,” said Hawley.

McCaskill faced similar criticism in her 2012 reelection after backing the key priorities of President Obama, the health care law and the stimulus package, in a state Obama would lose twice.  Her approval rating was stuck at 40% before her Republican opponent, Todd Aiken, imploded after claiming women wouldn’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape”.

A Morning Consult poll from last month pegged McCaskill’s approval rating at a dismal 39%, lower than any of nine vulnerable Democrats running for reelection in states carried by President Trump.   Her disapproval figure was 44% although the number is close to even when the question of whether or not she deserves to be reelected is posed.

But polling of McCaskill and Hawley head-to-head consistently shows a tight race.  A survey by Missouri Scout conducted in the days after last week’s primary showed them tied at 47%.  Hawley’s message Tuesday indicated he may believe his best chance to win is to constantly put forth his conservative platform in public debates.

“Let’s do it as long as it takes and let’s do it over and over,” Hawley told reporters.  “So, it’s not just one time.  (Let’s do it) so the folks in Missouri can hear us on these issues and hear us out on the trail multiple times and can know exactly where we stand on every single issue.  I mean, let the sunshine in.”

The Republican, who now serves as Missouri’s Attorney General, has also taken to Twitter to promote his flatbed trailer.  A posting Friday after both he and McCaskill appeared before the Missouri Farm Bureau showed McCaskill’s RV driving by his parked trailer with a caption asking if the sitting Senator had a plane to catch.

McCaskill had used a private plane to shuttle between several stops in June after advertising the journey as an RV tour of the state.

Plane to catch? #MOSen pic.twitter.com/ropHH4QLDb

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 10, 2018

During his press call Tuesday, Hawley noted that he’s accepted nine invitations from Missouri media outlets for debates while McCaskill has agreed to none.    The Senator’s campaign press secretary, Eric Mee, responded to Missourinet, saying Hawley was pulling “a stunt”.

“Missourians will see right through it,” said Mee.  “Claire welcomes debates. Claire has debated many times. And she has held over 50 town halls where any Missourian was welcome to ask her any question. She has already accepted a number of debates and looks forward to them.”

The two candidates have already agreed to a forum presented by the Missouri Press Association.  Following last week’s primary election, McCaskill issued her own challenge to Hawley, asking for four town hall style debates.

McCaskill claims she’s chosen to focus much of her time between now and the election on challenging issues such as protecting health care for those with preexisting conditions and relief from the trade war tariffs.

One prominent Missouri political group is backing Amendment One In November.

Springfield League of Women Voters chapter endorses Clean Missouri ballot measure – image courtesy of KOLR TV feature

On Tuesday, members of The League of Women Voters gathered in Springfield to endorse the measure known as Clean Missouri.

The measure would change several things about the way the state government is run, by eliminating most lobbyist gifts in the general assembly.

It would require legislative records to conform to certain open records laws.

The measure further calls for a change in the way voting districts are drawn up.  Its supporters say it would make sure no political party gains an advantage when voter maps are drawn.

Ann Elwell, a member of The League of Women Voters, explains why the issue of fair voter maps, matters to her.

“Because of the way maps are drawn, candidates are essentially unopposed. And they don’t have to work hard to get to know their voters, they instead work hard to get to know their donors. And that’s not the way our democracy’s set up,” says Elwell.

Missouri’s Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit to stop amendment one from showing up on the ballot, saying it bundles together several issues under a single ballot item.

The most recent polling shows a tight U.S. Senate race and a support for ballot measures going before Missouri voters in November.

A survey shows there’s truth in the contention Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill’s campaign makes when soliciting email donations – that she and Republican challenger Josh Hawley are tied.

The poll conducted last week by Missouri Scout shows McCaskill and Hawley would both receive 47% of the vote if the Senate election were held today.

The same survey gives Republican challenger Saundra McDowell a five-point advantage over incumbent Democratic State Auditor Nicole Galloway, 47%-to-42%.

Three other questions in the Missouri Scout survey bode well for ballot measures in this falls election.

A majority of respondents, 54%-to-35%, believe the Missouri Constitution should be amended to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.  Three ballot measures would legalize medical marijuana.

The survey also revealed that an even larger percentage favors raising the minimum wage to $12.00 per hour by 2023, 60%-28%.

And a slightly stronger majority than that, 61%-to-18%, would support amending the state Constitution to change the process for redrawing legislative districts and further restrict campaign contributions and lobbyists gifts.

The poll was conducted last Wednesday and Thursday, just after last Tuesday’s primary election.

Because of the tied Senate race in the Missouri Scout poll, the Real Clear Politics aggregate of surveys conducted since July of 2017 gives Hawley a statistical advantage of 0.2%.

The Real Clear Politics numbers don’t include a poll by Global Strategy Group in June that pegged McCaskill with a six-point lead, the only survey to give either candidate a lead beyond the margin of error.  The Global Strategy poll was conducted on behalf of Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC which is spending heavily in the 2018 election cycle, including in the Missouri Senate race.

McCaskill has taken a stance opposing such outside groups that she thinks will spend between $50 million-$70 million on both sides of the race.

The Missouri Scout survey is the first polling of the contest for State Auditor since McDowell secured the Republican nomination.

Galloway quickly slammed McDowell for having financial problems that she claims are troubling for somebody who would operate a state office charged with monitoring the use of tax dollars.

The St. Louis Post-dispatch reported that McDowell was ordered to pay $32,658 to a Springfield landlord in 2015 after she and her husband, Jonathan, stopped paying rent on a home.  The couple also was ordered to pay the City of Springfield $1,235 for unpaid utility bills.

In addition, the Post-Dispatch reported that in April, Jonathan McDowell was suspended indefinitely by the Missouri Supreme Court over allegations that his failure to file legal documents cost an airline pilot his employment discrimination case.

McDowell responded by calling Galloway’s claims “wildly inappropriate”.  The eight-year Air Force veteran said, “My husband and I did struggle to make ends meet earlier in our careers, like so many Americans did under President Obama’s stagnating economy.”

Although the Missouri Scout survey has Galloway trailing in the election by five-points, it did show her with strong support among moderates and non-partisans as well as liberals and Democrats.

The poll broke down the state into five metro areas – Columbia, Kansas City, Cape Girardeau, Springfield, and St. Louis.

Voters in all of those areas except Cape Girardeau supported amending the state Constitution to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, although the polling in Springfield was closer.  Voters in all five metro areas were strongly in favor of raising the minimum wage and changing the process for determining voting districts.

The minimum wage ballot measure would increase the state minimum pay by 85 cents per hour each year until 2023 when it would top out at $12.00 per hour.

The measure to alter the means of determining voting districts would also downsize limits on campaign contributions that candidates for state legislature can accept from individuals or groups and would limit gifts that state legislators and their employees can accept from lobbyists.

The measure was drawn up by the group Clean Missouri, which bills itself as a bipartisan organization.

It has the support of a GOP coalition which includes former U.S. Senator John Danforth as well as state Senator Rob Schaaf on St. Joseph.

The effort also has received financial backing from left-leaning groups, including Billionaire George Soros.  Soros’ Washington based lobbying firm donated $300,000 to a St. Louis based political committee in January.  That committee, MOVE Ballot Fund, then donated $250,000 to Clean Missouri three days later.  The move was criticized by Republican operatives at the time.

The Clean Missouri ballot measure is being opposed by a group is chaired by former Republican U.S. Senator Jim Talent who is being advised by Republican members of both Missouri houses.  They include Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard of Joplin and well as Senators’ Bob Onder of Lake St. Louis and Caleb Rowden of Columbia.

The Missouri Scout poll included 1,785 likely 2018 General Election voters and has a margin of Error is +/-2.3%.