Poll: Republican Josh Hawley Surging in Final Weeks of Missouri Senate Election

Missouri Attorney General and Senate Republican candidate Josh Hawley’s lead in the Missouri Senate race continues to grow in the final weeks of the election, according to a poll released on Saturday.

A Missouri Scout survey released on Saturday found that Hawley leads Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) by four points—49 to 45 percent—in the contentious Missouri Senate race. Three percent of voters remain undecided, while the poll has a 2.6 percent margin of error, giving Hawley a stronger lead over McCaskill.

A Missouri Scout poll released last week found that Hawley led McCaskill by one point—47 to 46 percent—which shows a net gain of three points for the Missouri conservative in the final weeks of the Missouri Senate race.

Several other recent polls released recently found that Hawley and McCaskill have struck a virtual dead heat or Hawley in the lead.

McCaskill held a dead heat with Hawley until she announced that she would oppose Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Republicans have surged in polls across the country in what some analysts call the “Kavanaugh effect.”

Now, the Real Clear Politics’ average of polls has Hawley leading by two points over the Missouri Democrat.

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released a video last week that exposed McCaskill for favoring restrictive gun control measures, which is information she has held from the public.

A Hawley campaign survey released this week revealed that Hawley leads McCaskill by seven points: 49 percent to 42 percent. The Hawley campaign credits the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for giving Republicans a durable lead going into the final two weeks of the Senate race.

“This lead has held firm since the vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” said Hawley pollsters Wes Anderson and Kyle McGerhrin in a memo to the Hawley campaign.

According to the poll, President Donald Trump enjoyed a 54 percent job approval.

Anderson and McGehrin even suggested that Hawley could still win his Senate race given a Democratic “blue wave.”

The two pollsters wrote:

The Democrats are trying hard to change the electorate this year by persuading younger, low-propensity, Democrat-leaning adults to register and participate in this election. To test this, we weighted our latest survey by party and age to artificially reflect Democratic aspirations.

“To date, we find absolutely no evidence that they are succeeding on the ground,” the memo continued. “But even if we assume that they eventually find some success changing electoral composition, our survey makes it clear Josh Hawley would still be in strong position to upset the incumbent.