JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Last Friday, the veritable bombshell of Donald Trump’s comments from 2005 that he could freely grope women because of his celebrity status stunned the political world. Politicians on both sides of the aisle denounced his words and a sea of Republican lawmakers asked for Trump to step down as they rescinded their endorsements.
Congresswoman Ann Wagner of Missouri was one of many legislators to call Trump out Saturday in the exodus, citing her work combatting sex trafficking.
My statement on the Presidential race: pic.twitter.com/mDAx5cCC59
— Ann Wagner (@AnnLWagner) October 8, 2016
However, of Missouri’s Washington D.C. lawmakers, Wagner is so far the only one to rescind her endorsement from Trump. Moreover, early indications from Missouri polls seem to indicate the videotape will not hurt down ballot races as much as previously expected.
Nationwide polls show that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s lead has grown around the nation and in some crucial swing states, but recent, separate polling from both the Missouri Times and Monmouth University still show Trump with a lead outside the margin of error over Clinton in Missouri. In the Missouri Times poll, Trump leads 47-42, and Monmouth’s poll has him ahead 46-41.
The governor’s race has also tightened in Missouri as Republican Eric Greitens has closed to within three points in Monmouth University’s poll. A month ago, Koster led in that same poll by 11 points. Greitens surged to that level in last week’s Missouri Times poll, but the poll released Wednesday shows that Attorney General Chris Koster has a six-point lead (48-42) over the former Navy SEAL.
Monmouth University also shows that Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt has a narrow two-point lead over Secretary of State Jason Kander, as word around the nation is that Kander is closing in on the candidate.
Monmouth is an A+ pollster according to FiveThirtyEight.com with a slight bias towards Democrats of less than a point.
Blunt, Greitens and Republican Attorney General nominee Josh Hawley were all quick to denounce Trump’s comments but did not rescind their endorsements of him.
Donald Trump’s words were disgusting and wrong. There is no defense of them.
— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) October 8, 2016
Missouri’s junior senator also reiterated his support for Trump in light of his comments Monday at an event with business owners in St. Louis. He said supporting the Republican ticket would help solve the nation’s woes.
“If you want to do something about ObamaCare… the out of control regulators, the terrible foreign policy, you can’t do that by electing people who have been part of the Obama term,” he said. “We don’t need a third Obama term, as long as the choices are Clinton and Mr. Trump, I’m for Mr. Trump.”
While Blunt said that each legislator would have to decide for themselves whether or not to support Trump, other Missouri lawmakers have been more vocal about those who strayed from the party’s nominee.
Congressman Jason Smith served as a commentator for the Trump campaign at Sunday night’s Presidential Forum at Washington University. He said that some of those that left Trump were too quick on the trigger in an attempt to save their own political capital.
“I’m reminded of what my grandfather told me, that people will hurt you a lot to help themselves a little,” he said. “Elected officials that are willing to go out and have ‘knee-jerk’ reactions when they are losing the focus of the issues, that’s a problem.”
In an interview with MissouriNet on Tuesday, Congressman Billy Long said that Speaker Paul Ryan’s promise to not campaign with Donald Trump troubled him. He said the stakes were too high this election not to support the Republican, especially with the Supreme Court on the line.
“No congressman puts people on the Supreme Court, the President of the United States does that,” Long told MissouriNet. “If we let Hillary Clinton get elected and put two to four people on the Supreme Court, the fabric of this country is going to be changed for the next 40 to 50 years.”
Smith added that Clinton’s insistence on lying to the American people about the federal investigation into her email scandal as well as the abundance of other scandals that plagued her made her a worse choice than Trump.
“The comments, the video that came out was unacceptable and appalling, but for any person to say that Hillary Clinton is more moral than Donald Trump, they’re delusional,” he said.
The incident led many Missourians to recall the 2012 Senate race in which Sen. Claire McCaskill beat former Congressman Todd Akin by 15 points largely based on offensive comments he made. When he claimed that a woman’s body could stop a pregnancy from a “legitimate rape,” he received widespread backlash from members of his own party that urged him to step down.
McCaskill admitted to subliminally supporting Akin in the 2012 Republican primary in her memoir, hingeing another term in the Senate that he would make some profound mistakes. She defended him again Sunday at the debate when comparisons between his comment’s and Trump’s began to surface.
She said any comparison was “terribly unfair to Todd Akin.”
“Todd Akin was embracing flawed science to support an extreme ideology he had, but he was very sincere about what he believed,” she said. “What Donald Trump said was bragging about being predatory towards women and using the power of his position to take advantage of women sexually.
“This is much much worse, that’s why it’s hard to figure that some of the very Republicans that called for Todd Akin to step down, why are they not calling for Donald Trump to step down?”
Featured image: Donald Trump speaking at CPAC in 2011. (Courtesy of Gage Skidmore)
