I think folks are looking too close at the Margin (Hawley up 3) and not enough at the big elephant in the room, this far out Claire McCaskill is at 45% thats not a good place to be, she wont get every single undecided voter breaking for her unless Hawley messes up and hes way too polished to do that.
I think Hawley is probably over-hyped and untested candidate who will be beaten like a piņata with the "opportunist"/"using us as a steppingstone" line, which I suspect will be particularly effective against him. It is also important to remember that this is a Republican firm. That said, McCaskill is a much weaker incumbent than someone like Tester, Brown, Manchin, or Heitkamp. I think McCaskill would've lost by 6-8% in 2012 had Brunner been the Republican nominee. Unlike Donnelly, McCaskill also has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth. Right now, I have this as toss-up tilt R, but I could also see McCaskill narrowly winning b/c of 1) the possibility of a Democratic tidal wave and 2) there is a real possibility of Hawley turning out to be this cycle's Patrick Murphy.
