JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. _ African-American leaders in Missouri are frustrated with what they see as Sen. Claire McCaskill's lackluster engagement with minority voters.
Frustrated enough that they refused to sign a letter pushing back against comments made last month by Bruce Franks, a prominent black activist and state legislator from St. Louis, who called on McCaskill to "show up" and earn the support of minority voters in her state.
"I'm going to vote for Claire, but Claire is going to have to bring her ass to St. Louis," Franks said to applause at a town hall he hosted Feb. 17.
In response to Franks comments, McCaskill had asked African-American elected officials in Kansas City and St. Louis to sign the letter.
Among those who were approached by McCaskill are U.S. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, Mo., and Lacy Clay of St. Louis and state Rep. Gail McCann Beatty, the minority leader in the Missouri House.
Each declined to sign.
"I'm 100 percent certain that nobody signed it," Cleaver said in an interview with The Kansas City Star on Wednesday. "We talked about it very seriously and strongly and every one of us said, 'We're going to support her, but signing this letter isn't going to achieve what she wants. It's just going to make people angry.'"
Cleaver said he's sympathetic to McCaskill's plight. She's a Democrat running for re-election in a state Republican President Donald Trump won by nearly 19 points in 2016. He understands she must win over some right-leaning voters in order to survive.
But as McCaskill works to burnish her reputation as a centrist, Cleaver and other African-American leaders said they worry she'll leave minority voters on the left with the impression that she's taking them for granted _ and it could cost her turnout in the urban centers that are crucial to her base.
"The state is large and diverse, but she might need to take the campaign into the repair shop in the black communities," Cleaver said. "I think if people see that she's actually trying to win them over then I think it will be a benefit to her re-election."
McCaskill's campaign said she has a long record of standing with and fighting for Missouri's African-American community, starting with her time as a prosecutor and continuing with her work as a U.S. senator.
"Nothing has, or ever will, change that commitment," said Meira Bernstein, McCaskill's campaign spokeswoman, in a statement.
Asked about the letter at a town hall in Kansas City on Wednesday, McCaskill said: "I think maybe the letter elevated the issue maybe more than it should have been and it was fine. I mean, listen, here's the bottom line: I am going to work very hard and not take one vote for granted. I am blessed to have a lot of friends and a lot of supporters in the black community and I am not going to take one of them for granted."
McCaskill is widely considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats going into the 2018 midterm elections. Her predicament with African-American communities in her state is illustrative of the broader challenge the Democratic Party faces as it struggles to find a winning formula in the age of Trump: Can the party make a strong, populist appeal to white, working-class Trump voters without alienating its base, including minorities and immigrants?
McCaskill has held more than 60 town halls since the beginning of last year, a fact her campaign regularly highlights as evidence of her willingness to listen to Missourians.
Of those gatherings, however, only a few have been held in predominantly African-American communities in the state's urban centers, St. Louis and Kansas City.
Franks said in an interview with the Star this week that it's clear McCaskill's campaign is not doing the same level of outreach in communities like his as it's doing in rural Missouri.
"I don't think it's even close to equal," said Franks, a Ferguson protester who toppled a political dynasty to win his seat in the Missouri House in 2016. He helped lead protests last year in St. Louis after a white police officer was found not guilty in the shooting death of a black suspect.
"It's about coming to economically distressed communities and saying, 'We haven't forgot about you, our most dedicated base, our most dedicated voters,'" he said. "Don't take our vote for granted. You can't rely on the African-American establishment or the African-American politicians to get you that vote. No, it's your job to show my community why they should vote for you. I can go all day and say 'Vote for X politician,' but if X politician isn't showing up, folks notice that."
The few events McCaskill's campaign has done in minority communities have been on short notice and not in the neighborhoods that need the most attention, Franks said.
Franks said he reached out to McCaskill's office after she held a town hall on Jan. 27 at Harris-Stowe State University, a historically black public university in midtown St. Louis. The campaign called him back Monday.
"If I need to fly to D.C. to meet with you, I'll do it, so I can help you engage the community," Franks said he told the campaign. "But I'm not going to do it for you."
He said he wants to help McCaskill.
"But you have to want to help yourself," Franks said. "You've got to want to win this race. I'm just asking you to show up, like I would any politician."
McCann Beatty, a Kansas City Democrat who serves as minority leader in the Missouri House, said McCaskill contacted her a couple of weeks ago to express her concerns about the comments Franks made in St. Louis on Feb. 17, when he said she needed to show up more in minority communities.
McCaskill wanted McCann Beatty to sign a letter her campaign had drafted in response.
"My concern is I serve in the House as the minority leader with Rep. Franks, so that would put me in a bad position," McCann Beatty told the Star.
"But it goes back to Rep. Franks simply asked for her to come into our areas so that our folks know who you are and know you care about their issues," McCann Beatty said. "He's repeatedly said he is supportive of her. We are both supportive of her. But there are concerns in our community. And it's an easy fix. Just come and address the community."
Others make a similar argument.
The last time Rep. Brandon Ellington, a Kansas City Democrat, said he remembers McCaskill coming to his inner-city district was for a meeting at the Bluford Library a few years ago. Ellington said McCaskill's lack of outreach to the inner city and African-American voters is consistent with the way that the Democratic Party as a whole targets the inner city.
"They don't," he said. "They depend on our votes without trying to reach out to us. That would be true of her and the entire party."
Democrats need to be cautious going forward because minority voters are paying close attention to what's been happening and who has been in positions of power and not done anything for them, he added.
"If you're not communicating with folks," Ellington said, "it's impossible to understand the circumstances and conditions in which they survive."
The result could be voter apathy, a possibility that Democrats can ill afford in such a crucial Senate race.
"I'm fearful that's what we're going to see in 2018 and going forward if we continue to neglect and not engage the citizenry as a whole, and only show up in certain segments of the state at election time," Ellington said.
Ellington and the other African-American leaders who spoke with the Star for this story said there's no doubt they will support McCaskill and campaign for her in their communities. The last thing they want is for a Republican to take her seat.
"Claire McCaskill has been my friend and colleague for more than 30 years," Clay said in an email. "She has my strong support and helping her win in November will be my top priority, along with my re-election to the U.S. House."
What matters, said St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green, is that McCaskill has shown up for the African-American community through the work that she's done in Washington.
"Every time I have had to reach out to Claire, she's there," said Green, who spoke to the Star at the suggestion of the McCaskill campaign. "I'm an elected official citywide. I've needed support for grant dollars for police, training and body cameras for police and I got research and help from her staff without question. ... She's called me personally in the throes of other urban issues and let me know she is there."
Cleaver said his read of the situation right now is that McCaskill is getting the message, and she's working to create a stronger relationship with African-Americans in both Kansas City and St. Louis.
"The relationship is not broken," he said. "It is bent somewhat, but I think if she works hard to reconnect she'll be able to win."
