Did Richard Mourdock's rape comments cost the GOP the Senate?

A new poll shows the Republican candidate behind by double digits, potentially putting a safely red seat in Democratic hands

Tea Partier Richard Mourdock was once a lock for Indiana's Senate seat. And then he started talking about rape and pregnancy...
(Image credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Indiana is almost certain to vote for Mitt Romney on Election Day, but the Hoosier State may very well elect Democrat Joe Donnelly to the Senate. Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party candidate who defeated longtime Republican Sen. Dick Lugar in a primary, is trailing Donnelly by 11 points in a new poll released by Howey/DePauw University. It's a stunning fall for Mourdock, who recently torpedoed his own campaign by bafflingly declaring that pregnancies resulting from rape were "something God intended to happen." With Election Day almost here, many say Mourdock simply does not have enough time to catch up. "It's all over but the crying," said Republican pollster Christine Matthews.

Mourdock and Todd Akin of Missouri, who also made a boneheaded comment about rape and pregnancy, have possibly cost the GOP two seats that the party should have picked up easily. It now seems highly unlikely that Republicans will regain control of the Senate, says Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post:

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