A new ad from Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill showcases Rep. Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remarks from August, as the two battle it out for the final eight days of the race for the Senate.
The new ad features Missouri women criticizing Akin for those comments, and calling him “scary.”
Watch:
“Todd Akin is scary,” says the first woman.
“His statement about ‘legitimate rape, is beyond the pale,” says a second woman. The ad then shows the clip of Akin saying in August, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
“He has no idea how it even works and he wants to legislate about it?” asks a third woman.
“I worry about the misinformation he evidently believes,” says a fourth woman.
“I am afraid of what he’ll do in Congress,” says the first woman.
“All women in Missouri need to think what happens to their rights,” concludes a fifth woman.
Though the comment has remained in the news, the McCaskill campaign has not necessarily been pushing it. It did not come up in the final debate, and McCaskill told Buzzfeed after that she had not brought it up because: “Everyone has heard it, and it seemed like to go there when there were so many other topics would look like piling on. I don’t think [the comment] will ever be played out for women.”
After the first debate, McCaskill’s campaign insisted that she had only addressed the comment because she was asked about it.
However, it has been used in other ads too.
“The point of the new ad, like the others we’ve rolled out in the past week, is that we’ve been hearing these sentiments from women across Missouri,” said McCaskill spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki. “The women in the ad are talking in their own words about why we can’t afford to elect Todd Akin.”
The Akin campaign did not respond to request for comment.
This weekend, a poll showed McCaskill and Akin locked in a statistical tie, with the Democratic Senator leading her challenger 45 percent to 43 percent.