Todd Akin Defeats Self-Funder, Palin-Backed Rival in Missouri Primary - East Idaho News
Politics

Todd Akin Defeats Self-Funder, Palin-Backed Rival in Missouri Primary

  Published at

GETTY P 080812 ToddAkin?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1344415930905Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call(ST. LOUIS) — Sarah Palin’s chosen candidate has lost Missouri’s GOP Senate primary.  So has the race’s self-funding front-runner.

Instead, Missouri Republicans picked Rep. Todd Akin in an upset victory for the Christian conservative, who is serving his sixth House term and who trailed badly, according to polling from Missouri.

Akin’s win comes as a surprise.  To many observers, it seems out of nowhere.

A July 23-25 St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll conducted by Mason-Dixon showed Akin lagging in a distant third.  In the apparent driver’s seat was St. Louis businessman John Brunner, a self-funding candidate who poured nearly $7 million of his own money into the race and enjoyed backing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Brunner collected 33 percent, trailed by the Tea Party candidate, former state treasurer Sarah Steelman, with 27 percent.  Akin mustered only 17 percent and seemed well out of contention.

Akin, who holds a divinity degree from a Missouri seminary, had begun his campaign with a blunder when he said in June 2011 that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred of God” — a comment made in response to NBC redacting the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance in programming surrounding the U.S. Open golf tournament.  Akin offered a semi-apology a few days later.

Steelman’s loss is bad for Palin and probably good for incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

Palin cut a TV ad for Steelman that has aired repeatedly in Missouri since last week.  She traveled to Kansas City to campaign with Steelman, who was also backed by the national group Tea Party Express, at a BBQ on Friday.

Steelman’s loss breaks Palin’s unbeaten streak in GOP Senate primary endorsements in 2012; she picked tea-party winners in Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, Nebraska’s Deb Fischer and Texas’s Ted Cruz.  Palin also backed incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch in Utah.  With another endorsee, Rep. Jeff Flake, leading handily in Arizona, Palin will likely go five for six in Senate-primary endorsements in 2012.

McCaskill will now run against her evident opponent of choice.  Among his GOP rivals, Akin performed worst against McCaskill in possible November matchups tested by Mason-Dixon in the late-July poll.  Akin still topped the vulnerable incumbent by five percentage points. 

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION