Could Todd Akin Actually Be Electable? Poll Shows Akin-McCaskill Missouri US Senate Race is a Toss Up

Could the Missouri US Senate seat still be in play?

A week after the dust up and free for all when Republican Senate candidate Todd Aiken made the unfortunate phrase, “legitimate rape,” a poll has come out that shows the race is a dead heat. The most recent Democrat leaning PPP poll showed that incumbent Democrat McCaskill has support from 45% of likely Missouri voters compared with 44% for Akin.  Has the race gone back to a toss up from leans Obama?

Also 53% of Missouri voters, including 77% of Republicans, have accepted Mr. Akin’s apology for his comments. 54% think he should stay in the race, while just 37 percent think he should drop out.

Despite widespread assertions that Missouri Republican Rep. W. Todd Akin’s abortion remarks have made him a heavy underdog in the state’s U.S. Senate race, a Democratic-leaning polling firm released a poll Thursday showing him in a virtual dead heat with incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

According to the survey by Public Policy Polling, Mrs. McCaskill has support from 45 percent of likely Missouri voters compared with 44 percent for Mr. Akin, a result that differs strongly from polls conducted last week by other firms.

Mr. Akin has been widely condemned by Democrats and Republicans since he made comments in an Aug. 19 television interview, in which he tried to explain his opposition to abortion for rape victims by saying that pregnancy is rare in cases of “legitimate rape.”

The current Public Policy Poll seems to be much more credible than the one they did last week that had a +9 R sampling. Now the recent PPP poll has a much more realistic and credible sampling of +2R. Has the Democrat party and the liberal MSM pulled another “Wellstone Memorial”? Have they overplayed their hand and beat up on Akin so much that he is now a sympathetic victim? For those who have forgot, Democrats turned the funeral service for Paul Wellstone into a shameful and inappropriate political campaign event.

The question has to be asked, just how bad a candidate is Democrat Claire McCaskill and how bad does the Shoe Me state want to show McCaskill the door in 2012?

A majority of voters say they do not approve of the job McCaskill is doing, indicating that even if Akin gave the McCaskill campaign a gift with his statements, she still has a steep climb ahead to convince undecided and independent voters to back her. Only 11 percent of Republicans in the poll said they’d vote for McCaskill.