Claire Conner McCaskill (; born July 24, 1953) is an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Missouri from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as state auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. McCaskill is the most recent Democrat to have represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate.
McCaskill is a native of Rolla, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri and the University of Missouri School of Law. McCaskill served as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 1983 to 1989, as Jackson County Prosecutor from 1993 to 1998, and as the 34th State Auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. She ran for governor of Missouri in the 2004 election, defeating Democratic incumbent Bob Holden in the Democratic primary and losing to Republican Matt Blunt in a close general election.
McCaskill was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, the first woman to be elected to the chamber from Missouri (Jean Carnahan was appointed upon the death of her husband). Re-elected in 2012, McCaskill was defeated in 2018 by Republican challenger Josh Hawley. Since February 2019, McCaskill has served as a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC. She is also the author of the memoir Plenty Ladylike (2015).
Early life, education, and early law career
McCaskill was born in Rolla, Missouri. Her father, William Young McCaskill (1925–1993), served as a state insurance commissioner during the administration of Governor Warren E. Hearnes. Her mother, Betty Anne (née Ward; 1928–2012), was the first woman elected to the city council of Columbia, Missouri. Betty Anne McCaskill lost a race for a seat in the state House of Representatives to Leroy Blunt, the father of U.S. senator Roy Blunt and grandfather of former Missouri governor Matt Blunt.
McCaskill spent her early childhood in the small Missouri town of Houston, later moving to Lebanon, and, eventually, Columbia. She attended David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, where she was a cheerleader, Pep Club president, a member of the debate club, a musical cast member, and homecoming queen. While attending the University of Missouri, McCaskill joined Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, graduating in 1975 with a B.A. in political science. She received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Missouri School of Law in 1978. In the summer of 1974, before graduating from the University of Missouri, McCaskill studied at the Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems at Georgetown University.
From the time she graduated from law school in 1978 until her exit from the U.S. Senate in January 2019, McCaskill spent all but three years of her professional career in the public sector. The exception is the three years she spent in private practice as an attorney at a Kansas City law firm (1989 to 1991). Following her graduation from law school, she spent one year as a law clerk on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District, which sits in Kansas City. Thereafter, McCaskill joined the Jackson County prosecutor's office, where she specialized in arson cases.
In 1982, McCaskill was elected to represent the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City in the Missouri House of Representatives. She left the State House and contemplated running for Jackson County Prosecutor in 1988, but did not pursue the position when her mentor, fellow Democrat and incumbent Prosecutor Albert Riederer decided to seek another term.
In 1990, McCaskill was elected to the Jackson County Legislature (the equivalent of a county commission or county council).
In February 1991, she testified in favor of a Missouri Senate bill that would prohibit a man accused of raping his wife from using marriage as a defense. "This is simply an issue of fundamental justice. It's embarrassing that we live in a state where it's okay to rape your wife", McCaskill said.
In December 1991, McCaskill announced her intention to run for county prosecutor. At the time of the announcement, Riederer had not announced whether he was going to seek reelection. McCaskill said that crime had "run amok" during Riederer's eleven years as county prosecutor. McCaskill won the Democratic primary, and she went on to win the 1992 general election with 53 percent of the vote. McCaskill was the first woman to serve as prosecutor for Jackson County. She was reelected in 1996 with 71 percent of the vote.
In 1998, McCaskill was elected as state auditor with 50.3 percent of the vote in the general election. She was the second female to hold the post, the first having been her immediate predecessor, Margaret B. Kelly.
When McCaskill ran for reelection in 2002, the winner of the Republican Party primary was Al Hanson, who had previously been incarcerated for fraud. Hanson said he was qualified to detect fraud because he had committed fraud himself. Because of Hanson's history, the leader of the Missouri Republican Party urged voters not to vote for Hanson in the general election. McCaskill was reelected with 60 percent of the vote.
McCaskill announced her intent to challenge incumbent governor Bob Holden in the Democratic primary on October 20, 2003.
On August 3, 2004, McCaskill defeated Holden, becoming the first candidate to defeat an incumbent governor in a primary election in state history. McCaskill carried much of the rural outstate, while also carrying areas whose voters had taken issues with Holden's actions, such as in Boone County home to the University of Missouri, which faced cuts under Holden.
On November 2, 2004, McCaskill lost to her Republican opponent, then-Secretary of State Matt Blunt in the general election by a margin of 51% to 48%. McCaskill's loss to Blunt was the first defeat in her twenty-year political career.
Both incumbent Jim Talent and McCaskill easily defeated their opponents in their respective primaries on August 8, 2006. McCaskill and Talent debated each other on Meet the Press on October 8, 2006. On November 8, 2006, McCaskill defeated Talent by a margin of 50% to 47% with two minor-party candidates taking the remainder.
McCaskill ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and faced Republican nominee Todd Akin in the general election. Until mid-August, polling showed them running neck and neck. Then, in a television interview on August 12, Akin claimed that women who were the victims of what he described as "legitimate rape" rarely ended up pregnant. His comments caused controversy and he was criticized by members of both parties. He faced calls to withdraw from the race but did not do so, and McCaskill opened up an increasing lead in opinion polls. Akin's comments caused a backlash among voters, particularly women, and McCaskill was re-elected with 55% of the vote to his 39%. Libertarian candidate Jonathan Dine received 6%.