Blunt truth: Missouri Republicans want more Trump

As swing-state Republican senators desperately distance themselves from Donald Trump, an unusual race is unfolding in Missouri: Incumbent Republican Sen. Roy Blunt is polling lower than the party’s bombastic presidential nominee.

Blunt is fighting a reputation as a Washington insider who represents the political status quo—the thing Trump supporters claim to hate the most. His fresh-faced opponent, Democrat Jason Kander, has made Missouri one of a handful of toss-up races on which control of the U.S. Senate will turn.

In July, Blunt led the race by 5 points, but RealClearPolitics’ average of polling now shows Blunt up by just 1 point and labels the race a toss-up. The same statewide polls show Trump leading by an average of 7.2 points.

Blunt spent more than a decade in the U.S. House, where he held several leadership roles, including House Majority Leader. He has served since 2011 in the Senate, where he sits on the committees overseeing appropriations and commerce and the Select Committee on Intelligence.

In 2012, Blunt chimed in with many others, including Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to call for Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., to drop out of the Senate race after making comments about “legitimate rape.” Yet this year, Blunt has maintained support for Trump even after video surfaced of him bragging about sexually assaulting women. According to Politico, Blunt said at a campaign stop last month, “There are big issues we’re facing in the country aside from what President [Bill] Clinton may have been accused of, or what other people may be accused of.”

Many social conservatives and religious freedom advocates see Blunt as a champion for their causes, but he also has a reputation as a dealmaker on fiscal issues, including the recent Zika funding fight. WORLD in 2005 called him the “King of K Street,” a reference to the downtown area of Washington, D.C., where lobbying firms are concentrated. Blunt faces criticism because his wife and children are lobbyists.

Blunt’s defenders, include Joe Ortwerth, who directs the Missouri Family Policy Council, a conservative nonprofit affiliated with Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and the Alliance Defending Freedom. Ortwerth called Blunt a “major ally and advocate in the Senate” on issues of life, marriage, and religious liberty and said he represents Missouri values well. “Whether that’s enough for him to survive an anti-incumbent onslaught is yet to be seen,” he said.

For example, the Blunt family drew criticism when it purchased a $1.6 million house in an affluent Washington neighborhood the year after he won his Senate seat. It’s not unusual for senators to move their families to the nation’s capital, but the size of the purchase was unusual.

Despite being only 35 years old, Kander is no political novice. He’s Missouri’s secretary of state (a role Blunt also held at the beginning of his political career), and he previously spent time in the state legislature, but he doesn’t have the burden of being a “Washington insider.”

Kander is pro-abortion, but supports the Hyde amendment, a 40-year-old ban on taxpayer-funded abortion that Hillary Clinton wants to overturn.

The New York Times traces his recent surging poll numbers to a September TV ad in which he assembled an AR-15 rifle blindfolded. (Kander served in the Army National Guard until 2011.)

But the National Rifle Association gave him an F rating. Conservative commentator and St. Louis resident Dana Loesch tweeted, “Irony: In a campaign ad #MOSen candidate Jason Kander assembles the sort of rifle he doesn’t support you owning.”

“The media has popularized that advertisement, and I did not view it as any kind of tipping point,” Ortwerth said.

Ortwerth, a former state legislator who sponsored the legislation that created the Missouri Ethics Commission, said Kander worked toward ethics reform on the state level. Although Kander was in the minority at the time, Ortwerth credited him with a “sincere, legitimate, and constructive interest in the issue.”

Blunt’s campaign has touted his Missouri roots and said Kander will rubber-stamp Clinton’s policies, reminding voters of Kander’s support for amnesty and Obamacare. Blunt still clings to a narrow lead, and Missourians may yet decide he doesn’t need reforming after all.