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Rep. Todd Akin’s wife, Lulli Akin, says the Republican Party’s attempts to push her husband out of the Missouri Senate race — over his false assertion that women who are raped rarely get pregnant — are like rape itself. RELATED: Akin TV Ad Buy Canceled — For Failure To Pay Station She also believes the GOP’s abandonment is on par with the tyranny that launched the American Revolution. Akin’s wife isn’t the first one to compare Akin’s explosive rape comments, and the ensuing fallout, to rape: Bryan Fischer said the party’s treatment of the embattled candidate had made Akin “a...

A poll commissioned by Citizens United's political arm shows Todd Akin leading Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri. The poll by the CU political victory fund and conducted by Wenzel Strategies, shows Akin ahead by almost 5 points. Mitt Romney leads President Obama by 20 points.

The fallout appears to linger in the Missouri Senate race, with incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill still holding a six-point lead over Republican challenger Todd Akin. But the race is tightening.

Current Republican Seat Current Democrat Seat Current Independent Seat No Senate election in 2012

No Pay, No Play: Akin TV Ads Canceled Television ads for Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin have been canceled after Akin's campaign failed to pay the whole bill, Talking Points Memo reports. By Maggie Rotermund Email the author 5:30 am Rep. Todd Akin is facing a new round of bad publicity today after reports have emerged that he has failed to pay for his television advertising on time. Talking Points Memo reports the Akin campaign’s TV ad buy with KOMU, a NBC affiliate in Columbia, was canceled. According to KMOX, the campaign had paid the first half of the buy,...

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MARYVILLE, Mo. — Three weeks after Republican Rep. Todd Akin upended the national political landscape by claiming that pregnancies rarely result from “legitimate rape,” the race for Senate in this increasingly conservative state — and in many ways the battle for control of Congress’s upper chamber — has settled into a waiting game. A Sept. 25 deadline looms. That’s the last day Akin can petition Missouri courts to remove his name from the ballot — and comply with the near-universal calls from party leaders who think his comments have made unwinnable a seat they need for an easier path to...

ST. LOUIS, MO. (KTVI) – Rep. Todd Akin’s “insurgent” campaign against both Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and the leaders of his own party may not be the long shot it’s been portrayed, despite the national furor over Akin’s comments on The Jaco Report that women who are victims of “legitimate rape” have natural defenses against becoming pregnant. A pair of polls taken after the incident and the following uproar either show Akin with a lead over McCaskill, or indicate the race is tied. The latest survey from Public Policy Polling, taken August 29, shows McCaskill leading Akin 45% to 44%,...

WASHINGTON, DC, August 29, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A poll of likely Missouri general election voters released this morning shows that, far from being out of the race, embattled Senate candidate Todd Akin has regained his lead over Senator Claire McCaskill by a 45% to 42% margin, with 13% undecided. The survey conducted by Wenzel Strategies commissioned by Family Research Council Action also shows Akin leading by 10 points among independent voters. “Despite the firestorm of news in the Senate race over the past few weeks, most voters have already made up their mind in the race, the survey shows,” said...

A new poll paid for by the Family Research Council, a pro-life group, indicates pro-life Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin now leads pro-abortion Sen. Clair McCaskill in the race despite the controversial comments he made about abortion and rape. The pro-life group says the poll is evidence that Akin should not drop out of the race and that calls for him to do so were premature. The new survey conducted by Wenzel Strategies of likely Missouri general election voters shows that Senate candidate Todd Akin has regained his lead over Senator Claire McCaskill by a 45% to 42% margin, with...

Via Ben Howe and Chris Loesch of Revealing Politics. Two possibilities. One: Priebus is bluffing in order to keep up the pressure on Akin to drop out. If he betrays any willingness to change his mind and start pouring millions into Akin’s campaign, it’s a cinch that the candidate will try to hang on until October. Two: Priebus and Romney are so worried about Republican candidates being damaged by the Democrats’ “war on women” messaging vis-a-vis Akin that they’d rather turn off the tap and see him lose a winnable race than rubber-stamp his candidacy by sending him a few...

TAMPA, Fla. – Republican leaders may want to turn the page on Rep. Todd Akin’s comments about women and rape, but Democrats won't let them. Phone calls started Monday in 20 congressional districts held by the GOP, linking the incumbent lawmaker to the six-term Missourian’s suggestion that pregnancy “rarely” results from “legitimate rape.” Akin is running for Senate, in a close race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill

TAMPA, Fla.— Karl Rove on Monday predicted Rep. Todd Akin will lose by the widest margin of any Republican candidate in modern history if he remains in his Missouri Senate race against Sen. Claire McCaskill. “What he said was indefensible and the way he handled it made it worse,” Rove told POLITICO’s Mike Allen at the first POLITICO Playbook Breakfast at the Republican National Convention. “This is a program that he taped and obviously he saw nothing wrong with it in his tape,” Rove said, pointing out that Akin didn’t respond to the taped interview until two days later. Rove...

A new poll shows that support for Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-Mo.) Senate candidacy has sharply declined since he remarked in an interview broadcast Sunday that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. Akin now trails Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) 50 percent to 41 percent in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll, which showed him leading the Democrat by 5 points in late July...

Support for Republican Todd Akin’s decision to stay in the Missouri Senate race has cratered and so has his favorability. Those findings come from two new polls conducted after Akin created a firestorm with his comment about “legitimate rape.” Republicans, by a 47 percent to 37 percent margin, think he should drop out of the Senate contest against Democrat Claire McCaskill, and self-described Akin supporters believe the same by 50 percent to 34 percent, according to a Mason-Dixon survey. Only Democrats, sensing he’s likely to lose, want him to remain a candidate, 47 percent to 37 percent. And in a...

Embattled GOP senatorial candidate Todd Akin received some words of encouragement from his opponent, sitting Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo). “I know a lot of people have been urging him to bow out,” McCaskill observed. “But really, why should he? Look, he’s obviously confused about biology. As the President said, he must have missed science class. But there are worse things to be confused about.” “A worse thing to be confused about is ethics,” McCaskill went on. “President Obama, for example, opposes giving aid to aborted babies that survive the procedure. I mean, once the child is outside the mother how...

Liberal pundits are declaring they have no idea what Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) meant when he referred to “legitimate rape” in an interview this past week. Akin stated, "In cases of legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It was an awkward, inarticulate statement, but the substance of it was correct. Explaining what he meant since then would be a bit crude, so he has not been able to adequately defend himself. His attackers have used the awkwardness to pounce on him and pretend they don't know what he meant, or make...

Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the GOP establishment aren't the only ones who want Rep. Todd Akin out of the Missouri Senate race due to his controversial "legitimate rape" comments. A Missouri poll shows that even his best supporters, by a whopping 17 points, want him to drop out. Only Democrats want him to stay in the race. According to a new St. Louis Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll, self-described Akin supporters want him to quit by a 50-34 margin. His image in the new poll is abysmal, with just 17 percent viewing him favorably and 56 unfavorably. And the bottom line...

The most remarkable stat in the poll may be this from the crosstabs: even voters who say they are supporting Akin think he should withdraw by a 16-point margin, 50 percent to 34 percent. That suggests there's a floor for a Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, but that conservatives in the state would rather have a different option in the race

ST CHARLES, Missouri (Reuters) - Missouri conservatives say they are rallying around U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin despite his controversial comments about rape because they are outraged that "establishment" Republican Party leaders tried to railroad him out of the race. A backlash has set in here in Akin's suburban St. Louis congressional district, where supporters said the national party had no right to attempt to force out a duly-elected candidate. Backers described Akin as the "real deal," a politician fiercely committed to their social causes such as opposition to abortion, and to the Tea Party drive to downsize government.