Claire McCaskill: Southern Democrats Can Do Without Obama In Their Reelection Battles

As several Democratic senators fight through tough reelection races in the south, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) appears confident that her colleagues can prevail -- with or without President Barack Obama.

In a Tuesday interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," McCaskill was asked the hypothetical question -- if she was in the shoes of Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) or Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), would she campaign with Obama?

“You know, probably not,” McCaskill said. “I’m trying to be really candid and honest on this show. You know, the president’s numbers are not strong in my state, or in Arkansas, or Louisiana, or North Carolina. He did not win those states when he ran for reelection in 2012.”

The same held true for McCaskill in 2012. She defeated GOP challenger Todd Akin by 15 percentage points in her 2012 Senate race. On the flip side, Obama lost Missouri to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney by nine percentage points, carrying only three counties in the process.

In the "Morning Joe" interview, McCaskill added that she thought the issue of having Obama campaign for the sentors was probably "not that important." She stressed that these races were about the individual candidates staying "on offense" about the issues that were important in their states.

HuffPost Pollster's latest compilations of publicly available 2014 election polls show Pryor, Landrieu and Hagan all facing slim edges against their respective GOP challengers.