Donovan Slack and Deirdre Shesgreen

WASHINGTON – Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill may not have a re-election battle this year, but she still finds herself smack dab in the middle of a campaign — a national crusade to keep women in the Senate and in leadership.

Right now, there are 20 women in the Senate, a record number. And with Democrats in the majority, eight of them hold powerful committee chairmanships. McCaskill wields two subcommittee gavels that give her broad purview over consumer protection and government contracting issues.

If Republicans take control of the Senate, there are only two female senators currently in line to take over committees, and it’s unclear if they would even get those posts.

So it’s no wonder that McCaskill has been feverishly raising money to help women in tight races that analysts say could decide control of the Senate, including re-election bids by Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana and Jean Shaheen in New Hampshire.

“We have finally gotten to the point where we have women in significant positions of power,” with female senators having real sway over “how our government works,” McCaskill said. Those gains are in jeopardy in this election, she said.

Committee chairs decide which topics receive hearings, which legislation gets voted on and what may be included in those bills. Democratic women currently hold the gavel in Senate committees governing the budget, spending, agriculture, environment, small business, ethics, Indian affairs and intelligence.

McCaskill is chairwoman of a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, as well as a Commerce, Science & Transportation subcommittee. She has used her perch at the helm of those panels to spotlight a broad range of issues — from weight-loss diet scams to General Motors’ faulty ignition switches.

On the Republican side, women are the highest-ranking members on one committee governing energy and another focused on aging. The typical game of musical chairs that occurs with any new Congress could change that lineup as members shuffle committee assignments. But just based on sheer numbers, the chances that women will lose power in a Republican-controlled Senate are high.

Chairmanships are typically decided on seniority, and there are only four incumbent Republican women senators compared to 16 incumbent Democratic women senators.

Republicans need to keep the seats they have and win six more in order to take control, and analysts say at this point, they are in a great position to do that. The New York Times’ TheUpShot on Friday gave Republicans a 61 percent chance of winning the Senate, while analysts at ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight put the GOP’s chances at 57.5 percent.

“It’s really, really close,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It could go either way.”

McCaskill and her female colleagues say the importance of having women in the Senate is not just about numbers and retaining the majority; it’s about legislating. They point to successful efforts by Agriculture Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., to pass a farm bill, by Sen. Patty Murray to pass the first budget in years, by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., to pass funding for that budget, and by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to pass a water resources development law.

Those women have pushed some of the largest pieces of legislation through an otherwise gridlocked Congress in the past two years, and all required overcoming objections from and negotiating with Republicans.

“All of these women are in very important positions, and they are doing great work,” McCaskill said. They’ve been successful because “they’re workhorses, not show horses,” she said.

“They’re more interested in getting things done than fighting,” she said. “And they’re not as interested in getting the credit as many others who have held those positions in the past.”

McCaskill said female politicians tend to take a measured, bipartisan approach and draw on their strengths as “nurturers and negotiators.”

“We’re trying to make peace constantly in our families,” she said, and it’s a “natural role” that women have taken on in politics as well.

Academic research has found that women in the U.S. Senate are more focused than men on social policy. In “Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate,” author and researcher Michele L. Swers found that “female senators are more active proponents of legislation related to women, children, and families.

“Because of their gendered life experience, women senators are more likely to begin with a predisposition to pay attention to the social welfare and feminist concerns that constitute women’s issues,” Swers wrote. “Therefore, a significant amount of gender differences stems from the personal experiences senators draw on and utilize to connect with the problems of constituents.”

For her part, McCaskill has championed a number of women-focused bills, most notably a set of reforms requiring the Pentagon to crack down on sexual assault in the military. Her proposal, which was signed into law last year, stripped military commanders of their power to overturn jury convictions and made it a crime to retaliate against victims who report a sexual assault, among other steps.

McCaskill worries that having Republicans in charge of both the House and Senate would make it impossible for key Democratic initiatives, such as raising the minimum wage and closing the disparity in pay between men and women, to become law. She said women could be hurt the most if the Democrats’ agenda is stymied.

“Whether it’s our fight to make sure birth control is included in insurance just like Viagra, or whether it’s continuing to work at the disparity in pay, those things will suffer if the Republicans take control of the Senate,” she said. “I think there’s a real price that will be paid for women in this country.”

So far this election, McCaskill has doled out more than $30,000 in campaign money to five women Senate candidates in tough elections. She also traveled to North Carolina to host several fundraisers for Hagan. And she has held fundraisers at her house in St. Louis for Michelle Nunn, a Democrat running in Georgia, and Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is running in Kentucky.

She’s been sending out email fundraising pitches for these candidates as well.

“If you want to know why it’s so important to elect strong women to the Senate, look no further than my colleague Jeanne Shaheen,” McCaskill writes in one such pitch, sent in June and asking donors to support the New Hampshire Democrat. “Jeanne has always kept her promises to women, fighting to protect their health and reproductive choices — leading efforts to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and establish equal pay for equal work.”

At the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spokesman Justin Barasky said the group has a lot riding on female candidates this year, including incumbents and challengers. He said that together, they make up a “firewall” against defeat.

“If our women candidates win, we’re going to hold the Senate,” he said.