Claire McCaskill could be saved by the minimum wage

Senator Missouri, Claire McCaskill, is one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats who wants to be re-elected next week. She is caught in a tight race against Republican State Attorney General Josh Hawley.

If she survives to win a third term in the Senate, McCaskill may have the minimum wage to thank.

In addition to choosing a senator Tuesday, Missurians will vote on proposal B, a referendum to increase the national minimum wage from $ 7.85 to $ 12 by 2023. Minimum wage proposals such as proposal B tend to behave very well even in conservative states. They also seem to launch the progressive base.

Some Democrats may be hoping this will help drag McCaskill on the finish line. The main group leading the "yes" effort on Proposal B, Raise Up Missouri, received more than $ 6.5 million in contributions, including more than $ 800,000 last month. Most of this money – $ 4.6 million – comes from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501 (c) (4) Washington-based liberal organization that does not have to disclose its donors.

This is not a scandalous amount of money in the world of modern political campaigns, but it seems to go beyond the "yes" camp pushing for any other minimum wage voting initiative in the 2016 or 2014 election cycle.

It also seems like a lot of money considering the lack of organized campaign against Prop B. The State Chamber of Commerce has pretty much solved the problem, perhaps concerned about a different voting measure that would tighten the rules on lobbying and campaign contributions. This means that the pro-Prop B message in TV ads and direct mail is barely countered.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund did not answer questions about its donations to the minimum wage cause.

Mike Saltsman, executive director of the Washington-based Employment Policies Institute, an industry-backed group that opposes minimum wage increases, said he thought the proponents of the pro-Prop B campaign hoped that this would help increase the participation that was stimulating McCaskill.

"During an election year marked by a bitter run in the Senate, if I'm on the other side of the aisle, I'm probably thinking of a global strategy: what are the different things that we can you start on that, "said Saltsman. "I think the minimum wage has become a checkbox on this list."

McCaskill may have received help from a similar minimum wage initiative when she narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Jim Talent in 2006 to win his first Senate seat, as the Recently noted Associated Press. This measure, also known as Proposition B, was adopted with a huge margin of 3-1.

McCaskill ended up defeating talent by less than 50,000 votes. "We know that when a problem has a direct impact on your wallet, you have more chances to vote," Jack Cardetti, a Democratic consultant to McCaskill's 2006 campaign, told AP.

It is difficult to understand the effects that other minimum wage initiatives have had (or have not had) on voting. These referendums went very well in 2014 and 2016, with four passes per cycle, including in deep red states, and sometimes by huge margins. However, these measures do not seem to have had much positive effects for the Democratic Party, suggesting that many people can support a raise in the minimum wage while voting for Republicans who do not support an increase in the minimum wage.

But in the case of Missouri, the referendum could help bring voters together in St. Louis and Kansas City, which will be critical to McCaskill's bid for re-election. And low wages in these cities may have a special motivation: both cities adopted their own minimum wage increase last year, but blocked them in the state legislature controlled by the GOP. Prop B gives voters a chance to force a minimum wage increase through the state.