ST. LOUIS — Todd Akin let pass the final deadline for his withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race Tuesday, defiantly predicting to supporters in St. Louis that he will beat Sen. Claire McCaskill.
“I was given a trust” in the August Republican primary that put him on the ballot, Akin told about 200 enthusiastic supporters in a ballroom at the downtown St. Louis before kicking off a statewide bus tour. “I have a purpose going into November and that’s to replace Claire McCaskill,” the incumbent Democrat.
McCaskill, meanwhile, wasted no time Tuesday in opening up on Akin over his controversial comments last month on rape and pregnancy, now that she can do so without fear of driving him off the ballot and getting a new opponent.
“Todd Akin said only some rapes are legitimate,” an announcer says in a McCaskill web ad posted Tuesday, marking her campaign’s first foray into an issue that has rocked the national political landscape. “What will he say next?”
Political analysts had predicted McCaskill’s campaign would begin hammering at the controversy once Tuesday’s deadline passed.
Akin’s strategy is to continue his shoestring campaign long enough to convince traditional Republican funding sources who’d fled during the controversy to come back to him. One big GOP donor is already considering doing just that, after vowing not to: U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, whose Senate Conservatives Fund is in discussions with Akin about providing funding.
