Akin loses in Missouri, and Mourdock loses in Indiana. Women reject two tone-deaf conservatives.
Image by Michael Conroy / AP
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two Republicans who won infamy nationally for insensitive comment about rapes lost their race for Senate from what should have been safe Republican states Tuesday, deepening the sense that women had driven a backlash over conservative Republican politics on abortion and reproductive rights.
Senator Claire McCaskill will beat Rep. Todd Akin and serve a second term from Missouri, CBS projected, while Democrat Rep. Joe Donnelly defeated Richard Mourdock in Indiana, networks projected.
Both Mourdock and Rep. Todd Akin had won their competitive Republican primary races by establishing their positions as the most conservative candidates in their fields. And both, running as they were in Republican states, were favored early on to win their respective general election contests.
But Akin's candidacy derailed just a week after he won the Republican primary, when he said during an interview in August that women's bodies could naturally prevent pregnancies in the case of "legitimate rape."
And during a debate last month, Mourdock said he would not allow abortions for women who were raped because pregnancies from rape are "something that God intended to happen."
Mourdock's comment was all the more talked about and criticized for its similarity to Akin's remark. But Mourdock did not apologize; instead, he merely clarified: "God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that He does."
With just weeks to go before Election Day, the majority of Republicans stood by Mourdock and rejected the public outcry about his statement.
Akin had not been so fortunate.
Immediately following Akin's comment, he was publicly and swiftly abandoned by the vast majority of the Republican Party — verbally disowned, financially cut off, and privately pressured to drop out of the race. After apologizing for his remark, Akin resisted widespread criticism and vowed to continue his bid for Senate, as he attempted to turn his rejection of the "party bosses" into a rallying cry.
As it became clear that Missouri would be a key state in the GOP battle to retake the Senate, those party bosses returned to support Akin in the final weeks of the campaign, and his campaign welcomed them back. Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee campaigned with Akin in Missouri; Sen. Rand Paul's PAC spent roughly $100,000 on anti-McCaskill television advertisements; and the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee renewed its financial support for Akin's campaign, if only through back channels.
But it appeared, in light of Akin's loss Tuesday night, that that effort came too late.
In Indiana, Democrats similarly maintained that Donnelly had been pulling ahead even before Mourdock's remark.
"Donnelly was up in our internals before the debate," one Indiana Democratic operative wrote in an email before the contest had been decided on Election Day. "It's about the pattern Mourdock has had of making extreme statements."
"The remark at debate just confirmed what we had been telling voters all along."
