Missouri’s Kansas City-based Congressman Emanuel Cleaver is cautioning his fellow Democrats not to rush in and try to impeach President Trump.

Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver speaks to Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth at the State Fair in Sedalia on August 16, 2018 (Ashley Byrd photo)

The congressman tweeted a video appearance on FOX News with commentator Neil Cavuto Friday in which he acknowledged some U.S. House members wanted to move quickly against the President.  “For me to suggest that there are not those who would like to impeach the President would be untruthful,” said Cleaver.

Democrats took back the House in Tuesday’s election.  The party currently has a 225-200 seat edge over Republicans, and that number could climb higher as 10 races are still not determined as of late Friday morning.  Republicans still control the Senate.

Exit polling by CNN on election day showed 77% of self-identified Democrats supported impeachment, compared with just 5% of Republicans and 33% of independents.

After President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday, Democrats are worried he’ll try to shut down special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  Trump replaced Sessions with Matthew G. Whitaker, an alley who is seen as likely to disrupt the Mueller investigation after making comments highly critical of the probe.

House Democrats have made clear they plan to hold hearings, call witnesses and investigate the President’s actions with the authority they’ll gain when the new Congress convenes in January.

Cleaver told Cavuto he’s troubled some of his fellow Democrats are insistent on preserving Mueller’s investigation while also calling for impeachment.  “Either you want Mueller to finish the report and then you evaluate it, or you just want to impeach the President without the report,” Cleaver said.  “I mean, this is a tough time, but we’ve got to be extremely careful.”

Trump said Wednesday that Republicans in the Senate would retaliate with investigations of their own and refuse to work with Democrats if they pursued what he considered unfounded investigations into his administration.  Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi had made an effort to strike a conciliatory tone before the President’s move to fire Sessions, promising to work with Republicans while standing their ground when necessary.

Cleaver told Cavuto he thinks President Trump might be trying to goad Democrats into a fight over the Mueller investigation and impeachment.  “The President, frankly hasn’t helped calm the waters, but I don’t add to it, I don’t want add to the turbulence,” said Cleaver.

The now eight-term Missouri Congressman from the state’s 5th District was emphatic about Democrats avoiding distractions in his tweet.  “Our goal in Congress should be to pass policies that benefit the American people, period.”

Our goal in Congress should be to pass policies that benefit the American people, period. Always enjoy speaking to @TeamCavuto https://t.co/6IatCnD52a

— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) November 9, 2018

Cleaver won his election with roughly 62% of the vote in a district that stretches from Kansas City eastward into Missouri farm country, including Lafayette and Saline counties, where voters tend to be more conservative and Republican.

Among the Congressional Democrats who have been the most vocal about impeaching President Trump is Representative Al Green of Texas, who won re-election Tuesday with 89% of the vote.

The ongoing urban-rural divide in voting amongst Missouri Democrats and Republicans was reflected in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate race.

The loser in the contest, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, may have been onto something when she said the constant presence of President Trump, who visited the state seven times during the election cycle, motivated both sides.

Republican Senator-elect Josh Hawley and his wife Erin at voting place Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

The high number of ballots cast for Republican challenger Josh Hawley in less populated counties gave him a majority 51% of the votes in the election.  The first-term state attorney general won all but four of Missouri’s 114 counties, garnering a 70% or larger share of the vote in at least 45 of them.  In many cases, fewer than 5,000 total ballots were cast in those counties.  In three rural counties – Barton, Mercer, and Stoddard – Hawley accumulated at least 80% of the vote.

By contrast, McCaskill lost the election while collecting 62% of the votes in the two largest counties, St. Louis (population 996,726) and Jackson (699,000).  She accumulated 84% of the ballots cast in St. Louis City (309,000) while generating a plurality of votes, 49% versus 47% for Hawley in Clay County (242,900) near Kansas City.  McCaskill also won Boone, the 7th largest County (178,271) and home to the University of Missouri with 56% of the vote.

Hawley won a plurality of ballots cast in Platte County (101,200) near Kansas City by a razor-thin 48.6%-48.2% margin.

The Republican won 10 counties with less than 60% of the votes cast.  They included the third and fourth largest counties – St. Charles in the St. Louis metro area (population 395,000) at 53% and Greene in southwest Missouri (289,800) at 55%.  Greene County is home to Springfield, Missouri’s 3rd largest city.

He won by a 70% or greater margin while accumulating more 10,000 votes in several counties.  Among them were the 13th and 14th largest counties – Christian (85,400) and Cape Girardeau (78,200).  Hawley received 25,400 votes in southwest Missouri’s Christian County and collected 23,000 ballots cast in southeast Missouri’s Cape Girardeau County.  He also received 73% of the vote totaling 15,100 in Taney County (55,400), which is home to the state’s biggest tourist destination of Branson and accumulated a 71% share which totaled 10,300 in southwest Missouri’s Webster County (10,332).

Hawley dominated voting in wide swaths of heavily rural northern Missouri where the 6^th Congressional District stretches to both sides of the state, bordering Kansas and Illinois, and encompasses the entire northern border.  The country’s 435 Congressional Districts are divided into sections that have populations of roughly 711,000.  Republican Sam Graves has occupied Missouri’s 6th District seat since 2001.

Two of the three counties where Hawley garnered greater than 80% of the vote, Barton, and Mercer, are in the 6th congressional district.

Hawley garnered 53% of the vote in Buchanan County which is home to the city of St. Joseph.

In what had been billed as a tight race in the U.S. Senate contest in Missouri Tuesday ended up as a sizable victory for Republican challenger Josh Hawley.

Republican Senator-Elect Josh Hawley at his election watching party in Springfield

At his victory speech in Springfield, Hawley said he received a call from both his opponent, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill who conceded the contest, and President Donald Trump.  The president held a late-night rally Monday in southeast Missouri’s Cape Girardeau that may have provided the boost Hawley needed to stretch his margin of victory to 6 percentage points.

In 2016, incumbent Republican Senator Roy Blunt beat Democratic challenger Jason Kander by a comparatively slim margin of 3% in an election in which Donald Trump carried the state by 19 points.  In his 51%-to-45% victory over McCaskill, Hawley far outperformed recent polling.

Going into Tuesday’s election the Real Clear Politics average of polls gave Hawley a razor-thin 0.6% lead.  Three late polls were released Monday morning.  One, NBC/Marist favored McCaskill by 3% while another, Emerson, gave a 3% edge to Hawley.  A third from HarrisX had them in a tie.

Red “Make America Great Again” Donald Trump hats were sprinkled throughout the crowd as Hawley took the stage at the University Plaza Hotel and Convention Center in Springfield.  The first-term state Attorney General, who had attacked McCaskill as a liberal who didn’t represent Missouri values, stayed in campaign form while declaring victory.  “What the people of Missouri said tonight is that they want a Senator who actually stands with the people of Missouri, who represents our values, who represents our voice and will fight for us in Washington D.C.,” proclaimed Hawley.  “And I will.”

Hawley had tethered himself to President Trump’s agenda early on in the election cycle and embraced a hard stance similar to the President’s on immigration and undocumented migrants.  On the stump, Hawley has criticized McCaskill for supporting a bill all Senate Democrats have endorsed that would prohibit children from being separated from migrant parents within 100 miles of the U.S. border, calling it “lawlessness”.

The strategy of aligning closely with the President’s harsh rhetoric on immigration had shown through polling to be a liability in suburban congressional districts but was thought to be helpful for GOP Senate candidates running in rural states won by Trump such as Missouri.

During his victory speech, Hawley expressed his gratitude to Trump, who has traveled to Missouri seven times over the election cycle.  “Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership,” said Hawley.  “Thank you for believing in Missouri.  Tonight, the people of Missouri have delivered.”

Statewide elected Republicans who joined Hawley for his election party included Governor Mike Parson, state Treasurer Eric Schmitt, and U.S Senator Blunt.  Blunt joined Hawley in praising President Trump for his efforts during the election.  “What about the effort the President made?” said Blunt.  “No president in the history of the country has made this kind of effort for a ticket his name was not on”

With McCaskill’s exit from the chamber in January, Blunt will become Missouri’s senior Senator.

Terry Bumgarner of Sparta traveled 30 minutes to Hawley’s election party in Springfield.  He said he’s pleased that President Trump has followed through on what he claimed he would do as President on issues such as immigration and the economy.  “It’s unusual,” said Bumgarner.  “It’s rare to see someone who will really follow the line of the things he pledged to do.”  Bumgarner thinks Hawley could help advance the President’s agenda.  “He will support the President.  And as long as we get the people behind him, we can get some things done in the country, good things.”

McCaskill, in the last weeks of the campaign, lurched to the right, which failed to boost her standing in conservative rural areas.  One of her radio ads ridiculed progressive and activist colleagues in her own party as “crazy Democrats” while she also openly embraced President Trump’s plan to block a caravan of refugees fleeing violence in Central American countries from entering the U.S.  “Stop them at the border,” McCaskill proclaimed during an interview on the conservative, pro-Trump cable outlet on FOX News.

The outside money expended in the Missouri Senate race as of several days ago was roughly $77 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  The biggest portion of that total, close to $40 million, was spent in opposition to McCaskill.

Only the Florida Senate contest outstripped the Missouri race between McCaskill and Hawley in outside money spent across the country.  Nearly $90 Million in outside spending had gone into Florida, a much more populous state with more media markets than Missouri, as of the last few days.

In January 2019, Missouri will have a new U.S. Senator, Republican Josh Hawley. Democrat Claire McCaskill conceded a hard-fought race tonight with a McCaskill-style exit.

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill conceeds to supporters at her re-election to Josh Hawley, the current Attorney General for the State of Missouri in St. Louis on November 6, 2018. McCaskill was the Democratic Senator for the State of Missouri for 12 years. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

“This state drives me crazy, but I love every corner of it. I really do,” McCaskill says. “I even love the reddest of the red counties and there were a lot of them tonight because the people of this state are down-to-earth and they are kind and they are like family to me. I feel like we’ve run a lot of elections together, Missouri and me. My record ends at 22-2. Not a bad record.”

McCaskill has served for twelve years in the upper chamber. She was state auditor from 1999-2007, Jackson County Prosecutor from 1993-1998 and a former Missouri State Representative from 1983-1988. In 2004, McCaskill was narrowly defeated in her race for governor against Republican Matt Blunt.

“For decades, I have been blessed to get up everyday and work in a challenging and interesting job trying to make things better in people’s lives. It has been such an honor,” she says. “I think I’ve made a difference at key moments and key ways. Believe it or not, I know my mouth gets me in trouble a lot, right? Believe it or not, I’ve had to be kind of careful. Not anymore!”

In his victory speech, Hawley says Missourians are united in the things they hold most dear.

“This election has been about our way of life. It has been about the Heartland way of life. It’s been about the way of life that built this country – the way of life that sustains this state. A way of life built around our churches and our faith, our families, our neighborhoods and our schools. I said from the very beginning, that this was about defending our way of life. It was about renewing it for a new day. We believe it’s not the past – it’s the future.”

Heading into today’s election, many pollsters put Missouri’s U.S. Senate race at a virtual tie.

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