As he appeared to make up lost ground in the final days of the race, Akin drew some support from more-mainstream Republican groups that had spurned him. A right-leaning super PAC spent about $1 million on ads urging Romney supporters to back him, and state party coffers swelled with about $700,000 earmarked for Akin’s candidacy.
Most of the ads pilloried McCaskill for supporting President Obama’s health-care initiative and the federal stimulus act.
A first-term senator who in 2006 had defeated incumbent Republican Jim Talent — now a top Romney adviser — McCaskill was attacked as a creature of Washington whose husband had reportedly received million of dollars in federal housing subsidies. McCaskill described one ad, which alleged that her husband had closed a business deal in the Senate dining room, as “pure fantasy.”
Akin also received a late boost from former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who sought to rally voters by portraying Akin as the anti-establishment candidate running against the monied interests in his own party as well as the Democrats.
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