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Politically Speaking: Hawley and McCaskill get outside help as Senate race heats up

Attorney General Josh Hawley shakes hands on Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence. Pence made a speech in downtown St. Louis to bolster President Donald Trump's policies.
Bill Greenblatt I UPI
Attorney General Josh Hawley shakes hands on Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence. Pence made a speech in downtown St. Louis to bolster President Donald Trump's policies.

This week’s election edition of Politically Speaking examines how national and state-based political figures are assisting Attorney General Josh Hawley and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s campaigns.

Hawley received a fundraising boost this week from Vice President Mike Pence, who swung through the St. Louis area on Thursday to promote President Donald Trump’s policies. Meanwhile across the state, House Democrats are trying to a linka 2017 controversyinvolving Senate President Ron Richard with Hawley.

In addition to recapping a few of the week’s top events, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies break down two Democratic primaries for St. Louis-based congressional seats.

The first contest of note is a race between Congressman Lacy Clay and Florissant resident Cori Bush. Clay has never lost an election and wants to use his congressional seniority to help some of the 1st Congressional District’s economically distressed areas. Bush is hoping to ride an anti-establishment wave thattook out New York Congressman Joseph Crowley.

In the 2nd Congressional District, five Democrats are stepping up to try and take on Republican Congresswoman Ann Wagner this fall. The three main competitors are Cort Vanostran, Mark Osmack and Bill Haas. While the 2nd Congressional District was designed to be a Republican district, the Democratic contenders believe they can ride a “blue wave” in November to victory.

You can read all of St. Louis Public Radio’s coverage of the 2018 election cycleby clicking here.

Follow Jason on Twitter:@jrosenbaum

Follow Jo on Twitter:@jmannies

Music: “Pushing Me Away” by Linkin Park

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Since entering the world of professional journalism in 2006, Jason Rosenbaum dove head first into the world of politics, policy and even rock and roll music. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Rosenbaum spent more than four years in the Missouri State Capitol writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Lawyers Media and the St. Louis Beacon.
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.