Polls show Missouri Senate race in dead heat

Two new polls in Missouri show a tight race between Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and her likely GOP opponent Josh Hawley.

Hawley’s campaign is touting a memo with an internal poll that shows him ahead of McCaskill, 47 percent to 46 percent. Seven percent of respondents were undecided.

A second poll released Monday from Emerson College found McCaskill and Hawley tied at 45 percent each, with 11 percent of voters undecided.

Both polls suggest McCaskill and Hawley are in for a tight race in a state carried by President Trump in the 2016 presidential contest by 19 percentage points.

The internal poll favoring Hawley by a single percentage point showed him with a lead among independent voters, with 45 percent. McCaskill won 42 percent of independent respondents, while 13 percent were undecided.

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Trump wins a positive job approval rating in the poll, at 53 percent. Forty-five percent of those polled disapprove of Trump. The survey also finds Republicans with a 3-point lead — 41 percent to 38 percent — in Missouri’s generic ballot.

The internal poll was conducted by OnMessage from April 16-18 and surveyed 600 likely voters. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

In the Emerson survey, Trump also has a positive approval rating in Missouri, at 47 percent, compared to 45 percent who disapprove.

The poll found that Hawley is strongly favored to win the GOP nomination in the Aug. 7 primary. He’s nearly 30 points ahead of 2016 libertarian presidential candidate Austin Petersen.

The Emerson poll was conducted from April 26-29 and surveyed 600 likely voters. The margin of error was 4.2 percentage points.

The circulation of this memo comes after some Republicans are still grumbling about Hawley’s fundraising. Hawley, who’s been viewed as a top GOP recruit, brought in $1.5 million in the first three months of 2018, compared to McCaskill’s eye-popping haul of $3.9 million.