Trump touches down in Columbia

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- President Donald Trump implored voters to reject Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, telling a raucous crowd Thursday to install a Republican in her seat who would fully back his agenda.

Trump appeared at an airline hangar in Columbia as part of a massive campaign tour. He said McCaskill has been "saying nice things," but said she "wants to get elected and then she'll always vote against us."

A check of her record, however, shows McCaskill votes with the president about half the time, though she has opposed him on some key issues, including his tax cuts and the recent confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump said McCaskill's Republican challenger Josh Hawley "will be a star."

It was Trump's second rally in an 11-stop, eight-state tour designed to boost Republican turnout. He will appear twice in Missouri, a state he won by nearly 19 percentage points, including Tuesday in Cape Girardeau.

McCaskill is among a number of vulnerable Democrats running in red states. She is a top target for Republicans seeking to expand the party's slim 51-49 edge in the U.S. Senate.

McCaskill is pitching herself as a moderate as she seeks to hold onto her seat. She has sought to distance herself from "crazy Democrats" and said in an appearance on Fox News she supports Trump's efforts to secure the southern border. Hawley has dismissed her efforts and argues she is not the right fit for an increasingly conservative state.

Two publications tracking how senators vote with the president show McCaskill votes nearly half the time with Trump, though she has not sided with him on many of his most important policy issues or Cabinet nominations.

The president has made his hard-line immigration policies the center of his closing argument, trying to raise anxiety about several caravans of Central American migrants traveling to the southern border and threatening to end the constitutionally enshrined right of birthright citizenship by executive order.