Democrat Claire McCaskill's Missouri has gotten increasingly Republican over the course of her 12-year Senate tenure. Early in her first term, Barack Obama barely lost the state to John McCain by a margin of about 4,000 votes. Eight years later, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by more than 500,000 votes.
So how can McCaskill win over enough Trump voters to eke out a third term? Prove she's listening.
The ad begins with a question on the screen: "Would you face a room full of people who disagree with you?" Soon the screen fills up the images of scowling faces from her town halls, as McCaskill cheerily notes: "kinda what the job is, right?! Listening to people. And I've tried to go out of my way to places where I'm not that popular."
Text on the screen asks a follow-up question: "Would you do it fifty times?" McCaskill then says she did 50 town halls in the past year, and a clip from a local news report notes they were all in Republican-majority areas.
"Lots of these folks in these town halls have never and will never vote for me," says the Senator, "You know people are going to ask you questions that are not easy to answer. But you know, that's the deal." Meanwhile, we see McCaskill happily mixing it up with her constituents.
McCaskill astutely notes she won't win in most of the counties she visited. Left unsaid is that she knows she must limit the margins of defeat in those conservative areas, if she is to win on the strength of the few urban counties in Missouri. This ad is designed to achieve both those political goals, buoy her Democratic base while tamping down the intensity of Republican opposition.
So how can McCaskill win over enough Trump voters to eke out a third term? Prove she's listening.
McCaskill Showcases Her 50 Town Halls
In her ad "Listening," McCaskill showcases her recent town hall tour in which she criss-crossed the state.The ad begins with a question on the screen: "Would you face a room full of people who disagree with you?" Soon the screen fills up the images of scowling faces from her town halls, as McCaskill cheerily notes: "kinda what the job is, right?! Listening to people. And I've tried to go out of my way to places where I'm not that popular."
Text on the screen asks a follow-up question: "Would you do it fifty times?" McCaskill then says she did 50 town halls in the past year, and a clip from a local news report notes they were all in Republican-majority areas.
"Lots of these folks in these town halls have never and will never vote for me," says the Senator, "You know people are going to ask you questions that are not easy to answer. But you know, that's the deal." Meanwhile, we see McCaskill happily mixing it up with her constituents.
McCaskill Tries To Tamp Down Republican Opposition
She then offers what she's gets out of the experience: "listening and figuring out what is really on people's minds, what is going on in their lives where I need to get to work. And she adds, "sometimes something special, we find out that there is common ground and that really is a cool moment." She does not give an actual example of common ground, but we do see some town hall faces with newfound smiles willing to give applause.McCaskill astutely notes she won't win in most of the counties she visited. Left unsaid is that she knows she must limit the margins of defeat in those conservative areas, if she is to win on the strength of the few urban counties in Missouri. This ad is designed to achieve both those political goals, buoy her Democratic base while tamping down the intensity of Republican opposition.