Missouri senator Claire McCaskill (D.) has worked to distance herself from the anti-Trump resistance, but a San Francisco group is rewarding her for voting with the resistance.
Democracy Action, a group dedicated to "fighting the Trump agenda," is coordinating with Missouri Democrats to hold a San Francisco phone bank in support of McCaskill, considered to be one of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection this year.
The group says it decided to hold a phone bank for McCaskill after she voted against confirming CIA director Gina Haspel, who was strongly opposed by resistance groups.
"Senator Claire McCaskill is the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate," the group wrote on Facebook. "That didn't stop her from bravely voting NO on the confirmation of Gina Haspel as CIA director. Courageous senators like Claire deserve our support!"
The phone bank event is scheduled for Sunday in San Francisco, according to the Eventbrite invite. Democracy Action says it is working with the Missouri Democratic Party's Coordinated Campaign "to help identify and mobilize Senator Claire McCaskill supporters for the November elections."
McCaskill has thus far framed herself as a centrist during her reelection effort, saying in a recent interview that she is not in Washington, D.C., to "fight Donald Trump" and that she has "no problem saying" she's agreed with him "on a number of occasions."
Neither the Missouri Democratic Party nor the McCaskill campaign responded to requests for comment on working with Democracy Action, which maintains a calendar of resistance events held in the San Francisco area.
"Democracy Action is one of many organizations fighting the Trump agenda," it says. "Below is a list of events hosted by us and other resistance groups throughout Northern California."
Among the groups it promotes are #Resist San Francisco, #TheResistance San Francisco, the Resistry, and SF United Against Trump.
Republicans criticized McCaskill for her vote against Haspel, saying it was evidence she was putting the anti-Trump agenda over national security.
"McCaskill proved once again that she is so liberal, and so reflexively opposed to the president that she cannot represent Missourians in the Senate," Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said following the Haspel vote. "She put partisan politics over national security."
Josh Hawley, Missouri's Republican attorney general and McCaskill's likely Senate opponent in November, said McCaskill was "a hard partisan who only cares about obstructing the Trump agenda."
McCaskill said it was not pressure from resistance groups that led to her vote against Haspel, but rather that her vote was based on "classified" information that couldn't be disclosed.