34 United States The EconomistFebruary 3rd 2018
F
OR those Democrats, brimming with anti-Trump zeal, who
think now is the time to cleanse themselves of ideological im-
purity, Claire McCaskill has a message. “I want people to under-
stand, particularly in the progressive wing of my party,” said the
senator from Missouri, who isfighting a tough battle for re-elec-
tion in November, “that it’s not justa question ofwhether I am
perfect for them on all the issues. It is that, ifI lose, a Republican
will take my place who’d be anathema to them on every issue.”
Speaking on the fringe of a campaign event in St Louis, Mis-
souri’s second city, Ms McCaskill had had a trying week. Her state
elected President Donald Trump by a 19-point margin, mainly, as
everywhere, because he promised to keep out foreigners. Yet her
party, egged on by its progressives, had just shutdown the federal
government in a botched bid to protect a multitude of illegal im-
migrants. Ms McCaskill, a tough operator with a prosecutor’s
mind and a folksy manner, joined four other moderate Demo-
crats in voting against the shutdown. She was also, though flu-rid-
den, involved in negotiating an agreement to end it. Naturally,
this won her no favours from her Missourian opponents, who
consider her a liberal cuckoo in a Republican nest, or from ambi-
tious progressives such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren,
who decried the shutdown’s swift conclusion. At least she is used
to it. “No matter what I decide on any issue, half the people are
mad at me,” she said, rather optimistically.
Her difficulty points to a paradox in American politics. While
both parties have moved further to the extremes in recent years,
making it increasingly hard for centrist politicians to operate, the
tightness of the contest means those same politicians tend to de-
cide which party holds sway. In other words, moderates have
never been more marginalised or more important. The hyper-
partisanship around Mr Trump’s presidency has increased that
tension further, especially in the Senate, where ten Democrats are
up for re-election in states the president won. Mostare moder-
ates, including five in states he won by crushing margins: Indiana,
Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.
That makes their task daunting. Mr Trump’s victories repre-
sented, among otherthings, a rightward turn in many formerly
competitive states. Missouri, once seen as an electoral bellweth-
er, is now firmly underRepublican control. And the fact that mostDemocrats denounce everything Mr Trump says or does has
made these senators’ lives even harder. Yet they are their party’s
single best hope of recovery. If the Democrats can defend their
seats, and pick up a couple more, probably in Nevada and Arizo-
na, they could take back the Senate. That would give the party
control of presidential appointments, including judges, as well as
of the legislative agenda. If mostof the moderates lose, on the
other hand, no amount of grassroots activism in California and
New York will dull the blow. “The Republicans could conceivably
get to 60 votes,” says Ms McCaskill. “And then, as my grandmoth-
er used to say, ‘Katy bar the door’.”
She had just spent an hour on a scuffed stage trying to prevent
that, by answering unscripted questions from a small crowd. It
was the 52nd such event Ms McCaskill had undertaken in a year—
mostly in conservative places where she can at best restrict the
size ofher defeat. The format suits her. Havingheld elected office
at several levels in Missouri—as a county prosecutor, in the state
assembly and as chief auditor—before she entered the USSenate
in 2007, she has a good grasp of public policy. She has also re-
tained, unusually for a career politician, a knack of sounding hu-
man. She speaks plainly, sounds genuinely interested when she
probes the audience for extra details and keeps her crowing to a
tolerable minimum.
These skills help Ms McCaskill serve two tactical ends. She
can mostly avoid saying nasty thingsabout Mr Trump, who is as
popular in Missouri as she is. (“Part of our problem is demonisa-
tion,” she says, “It’s like a sugar-high, but it doesn’t get us any-
where.”) They also help her present herself as a pragmatist, eager
to work across the aisle—and in the process downplay partisan
positions such as her support for abortion. Her likely opponent,
Josh Hawley, the state’s 38-year-old attorney-general, is also high-
ly rated. Yet opinion polls suggest Ms McCaskill, though the most
endangered Democratic senator, has a decent chance.
Democratic strategists are thrilled. One sees Ms McCaskill’s
resilience as proof the Democrats are farmore viable in conserva-
tive states than is often assumed. If, as expected, the party enjoys
a wave of victories in the mid-terms, another predicts its ranks
will be swelled by many new moderates, who would peg back
the leftish ideologues and further expand the party’s reach. They
are probably both half-right, yet much too optimistic.
Even if the Democrats checktheir drift to the left, the Republi-
cans’ social conservatism will give them a sizeable advantage in
the Senate, where small conservative states carry as much weight
as big progressive ones. For a Democrat to win in most of the 30
states Mr Trump won requires an outstanding candidate, as Ms
McCaskill is, or an awful opponent, like Roy Moore in Alabama,
or both. More often, an ordinary pro-life Republican will win.Nothing in moderation
There is also little evidence of a moderate revival in either party.
The newbie Democratic candidates campaigning for the mid-
terms are perhapsunusually ideological, the party having de-
terred pro-lifers and other heretics. And in this, moreover, both
parties reflect a shiftin the electorate. The essence of political
moderation is not to hold mild views, which few voters consis-
tently do, but to be open to persuasion, and only a tiny minority
of Americans are. The cohort of swing voters has been falling for
decades. Majorities ofRepublicans and Democrats now have
strong negative feelings towards each other. Americans have be-
come hooked on the sugar-rush. It is doing them no good. 7The last of the moderates
Claire McCaskill exemplifies pragmatism and bipartisanship—and how endangered they areLexington