Trump’s Friday rally in Missouri poses questions for GOP Senate candidate Josh Hawley

President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Springfield Friday evening. He’s expected to urge support for Josh Hawley, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.

We welcome the president back to the state. If the Springfield rally is like others, Missourians will be treated to a mix of Trumpian bombast, intense media criticism and truth stretched well beyond the breaking point.

Which is too bad. As the race between Hawley and incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill enters its most crucial stretch, Missouri voters must rely on facts to make up their minds, and facts may be in short supply Friday.

Health insurance, for example, is likely to come up. Hawley has repeatedly said health insurers should be required to provide coverage for patients with existing illnesses.

“I think we need to cover pre-existing conditions and get rid of Obamacare,” he said in July.

Yet it isn’t clear how he would accomplish this. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, but insurers are still required to cover pre-existing conditions, health insurance premiums for individuals and businesses would inevitably skyrocket, or insurers would go broke.

That’s because Americans would postpone buying insurance until they got sick, then insist on coverage. Surely Hawley understands this.

As it is, with most of Obamacare still in place, health premiums in Missouri have actually stabilized for 2019 and have dropped in some cases. In fact, the president recently bragged about the dip in health insurance prices.

“We’re holding the rates down,” Trump said Monday. “The remnant of Obamacare is much less expensive than people thought ... We’re very proud of that.”

That suggests the woes of Obamacare have been exaggerated. Perhaps Hawley and the president could discuss this phenomenon in Springfield Friday.

While they’re at it, Trump and Hawley could talk about the president’s veiled threat to shut down the government next week if he doesn’t get federal funding for a border wall with Mexico.

“Where is the money for Border Security and the WALL in this ridiculous Spending Bill?” Trump tweeted Thursday.

Hawley supports construction of a border wall. Does he support shutting down the federal government if next week’s catch-all spending bill lacks wall funding? Maybe he’ll talk about that Friday.

Trump’s trade war has damaged Missouri’s farmers and industry, yet candidate Hawley has embraced the Trump tariffs. On Friday in Springfield, we’ll be listening for any defense of this ruinous approach to trade.

We’ll also wait for Hawley’s full-throated endorsement of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, despite recent allegations of the nominee’s potentially disqualifying behavior.

President Trump is still popular in Missouri. But he is less popular than he used to be: In 2016, he won the state by nearly 19 points; in August, more Missourians disapproved of his performance than approved of it. That’s quite a drop.

To their credit, Missouri voters still expect facts and results. They’ll listen Friday to the president’s words, and Hawley’s, about important issues such as immigration and health care. If we’re lucky, Trump will keep the arm-waving and sophistry to a minimum.

That’s unlikely. That means Missourians will want to carefully measure the distance between the president and Hawley when both take the stage in Springfield.

This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 3:50 PM.