Democrats Should Remember the Todd Akin Situation in Missouri: It Helped Them There but John Gibbs in Michigan Might Be a More Cautionary Tale in November

American Eclectic

September 1, 2022

Democrats pushed for and put money into defeating Representative Peter Meijer (R. MI) in the Republican Michigan primary in August—and got what they wanted: John Gibbs won the primary.  The belief is that the voters in the general election will not support him since he will be seen as too extreme.  This playbook has been tried before but I’m not sure that the playbook always works.

The playbook seems to be a reference back to the 2012 Senate race in Missouri in which then Senator Claire McCaskill (D. MO) was running against Representative Todd Akin (R. MO).  The Democrats saw the chances of retaining the Senate seat as better if they ran against Akin rather than one of the other two Republicans who were in the Republican primary race:  The Democrats got their wish.

Akin ran for a seat in the House of Representatives in the 2000 election, and it looked likely that a Republican would win since the district had been changed to add more of Saint Charles County, a Republican stronghold: Akin won.  As a sidenote, Akin defeated a friend who was the Democratic candidate—this was an open seat (I only met him, and we became friends more than a year after this election).  Also, I knew Akin when he was in the Missouri legislature since I needed to interview him about an issue regarding annexation, which is always a hot local government issue.  Although Akin won the Congressional seat, there were grumblings within the Republican Party since he did not seem to be liked.  I remember Republicans I knew complaining about him, even when he held a town hall meeting, or even as he won five re-election races.  When Akin won his seat he stated, “My base will show up in earthquakes.” That quote by Akin about his base may have been the perception that he brought with him through his re-election races and into his race for the Senate seat.

During the Republican Senate race, there was a debate among the three candidates vying to get the nod to run against McCaskill, and, interestingly, during the debate the issue of repealing the 17th Amendment (added to the U.S. Constitution in 1913) came up.  This amendment established that Senators would be directly elected by the people, previously state legislators elected the two Senators: This call to repeal the 17th Amendment received thunderous support from the audience.  This was a period when the Tea Party was active and this sentiment to roll back something that gave us more democracy—the direct election of U.S. Senators was seen as bad by Republicans.  Even before Donald Trump was visibly on the radar, Republicans were showing signs of anti-democratic support.

Akin won the Senate primary in early August and hit the campaign trail.  One of his stops was a local TV news station in St Louis, about two weeks after winning the primary.  He appeared on the “Jaco Report,” and there he made the statement that doomed him in the general election: Legitimate rape.  Akin elaborated on his statement adding:

If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.

The conditional statement made at the end of his remark was certainly not heard, it was not enough to overcome the outrageousness of his comment on legitimate rape.

After he said this the station was not sure how to respond. Jaco wanted to go on TV and make a statement, but the station head said no.  As a result, I received a call to come and make a statement: I had done a number of shows with Jaco so knew him from our appearances together.  I know that this statement by Akin was found to be both odd and severely out of touch with reality by those at the station.  I felt the station made the correct call by not allowing Jaco to make a statement, since it would have looked like he set Akin up—which was not the case.  A TV reporter I knew well and worked with described Akin as, “the perfect 17th Century gentleman”—implying he could be oblivious to things he said.

Before going on the air, I worked out what I would say.  The idea was that I would not say something that would sound as though I was going to inflame the situation or see it as an opportunity moment for McCaskill.  I said that “politicians make a lot of silly and stupid statements trying to appeal to any number of small segments within the electorate.  We don’t know yet how this will play with the electorate.”  Neutral enough so the station was not seen as taking sides in the Senate race.  I have always thought the station did a good job of handling this extremely odd situation.  In the week leading up to his interview with Jaco, Akin had been making the rounds visiting home school parent groups and some of his statements to these parents sounded as though they had the potential to be used against him by the McCaskill camp.

The legitimate rape statement played incredibly badly for Akin and, naturally at some point he blamed on the whole thing on TV news being biased—that was not the case, Akin did this all to himself.

Akin might have been a completely different person than what the Democrats hope for regarding John Gibbs.  Put aside whatever extreme views Gibbs may have, the issue is whether he can present himself in a way that looks, well, normal.  Akin seemed less interested in that, certainly his statement about his base turning out even in an earthquake may have indicated a certain mind set.  If Gibbs listens to his handlers, if his TV appearances make him look different than the way Democrats hope to present him, if voters don’t see any nuttiness, he could win.

Akin had one big slip—in his case that was all it took.  The Akin slip carries the image of the Hail Mary Pass in football—one thing and nothing more.  What do the Democrats hope for in the Gibbs situation?  Are they expecting he will say just one thing that will sound so out of the normal that it will resonate with voters and the Democrat will win?  Saying a lot of silly, even off-the-wall statements may not play the same way as just one incredibly odd statement that voters can hold with them as they head to the polls.

What can tip an election one way or the other?  The Akin situation was unusual—it may not be a playbook that can apply to many other election situations.  There is always hope by one side, fear by the other that a candidate can fall on their face and do it dramatically enough to register with voters.  The polls, at one point, had Akin winning the Senate seat, in fact one poll had him ahead by 11 points.  I remember I needed to cover a statement that Akin was going to make as he quickly started to fall in the polls and some showed McCaskill suddenly in the lead.  There were rumors that he would drop out of the race and, at the St. Louis County location in Chesterfield where he showed up to make a statement as the political tide turned against him, he said he was staying in the race.  This did not seem like a surprise to many of us that had some understanding of him from years of following him.  I received a call from a former state legislator who served with him in the Missouri General Assembly, and he said he had no doubt Akin would stay in the race.

The impact of Akin’s statement could be seen in the election results: 2012 was also a Presidential election year and while Barack Obama won re-election, he lost Missouri to Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger (53.64% to 44.28%).  Missouri has 115 counties (the City of St Louis is considered both a city and a county) and Obama only won four counties.  McCaskill defeated Akin (54.81% to 39.11%), a different outcome from Obama in Missouri and the count showed it: McCaskill won 52 counties, although 25 of those counties were plurality wins not majority, which would indicate that Republican voters (probably rural women) were voting against Akin not necessarily for McCaskill.

John Gibbs has indicated a capability to say foolish things.  Gibbs tweeted that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, participated in a satanic ritual.  Senator Mitt Romney (R, UT) called this “extreme, if not bizarre or nonsensical.”  Donald Trump has endorsed Gibbs.  Peter Meijer who Gibbs defeated in the Republican primary had only won his seat in the 2020 election, so did not have a long track record of wins, or re-election wins to build upon to help him in the 2022 primary race and he was one of ten Republicans to vote to impeach Trump in Trump’s second impeachment, so, naturally, Trump showed his childish behavior by endorsing Gibbs. Trump won Michigan’s Third Congressional District 52%-42% in 2016, a sizable margin, but in 2020 won it 51%-47%.  As the McCaskill vote showed, Republican voters in the Third Congressional District need a reason to vote against Gibbs.  Hillary Scholten, the Democratic candidate, lost to Meijer in the 2020 election, but redistricting might help her this time—the Congressional district appears more competitive.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson overturning Roe v Wade, might play out in this race.  Gibbs issued a statement supporting the Dobbs ruling and Gibbs is seen as decidedly strict in his abortion position.  After the Dobbs ruling, a Washington Post article stated:

Women in Michigan led men in new voter registrations by about seven percentage points after the Supreme Court struck down Roe, one data firm’s analysis found. In many of their highest-profile races, Republican voters have nominated candidates who embrace strict abortion bans without exceptions for rape and incest.

A record number of signatures were turned into Michigan’s Secretary of State’s office to put an initiative on the ballot in November to support abortion rights in the state (unless anti-abortion supporters get their way to kick it off the ballot based on a legal filing about an odd typo).  Some years back when states put proposed amendments to their state constitutions on the ballot addressing that marriage was between a man and a woman, to not recognize gay marriage, that worked to get out unusually large numbers of fundamentalist Christian voters in those situations and those voters voted for Republican candidates.  I went over this with a Democratic who lost in Missouri when the marriage amendment was on the ballot, and he felt he lost because of that amendment on the ballot.

In Michigan, while a reaction against Dobbs can help Democrats, as well as a redistricted Third Congressional District, the Akin lesson is that Republican voters need a reason to vote against Gibbs not necessarily for Scholten.

NOTES

Todd Akin: ‘Legitimate rape’ victims Rarely get pregnant: https:// www.politico.com/video/2012/08/todd-akin-legitimate-rape-victims-rarely-get-pregnant-011369

BrainyQuote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/todd_akin_479433

Joey Cappelletti, “Abortion rights to be on Michigan ballot this fall,” PBS (July 11, 2022): https:// www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/abortion-rights-to-be-on-michigan-ballot-this-fall

Mike Hoyt, “Backstory: the reporter who interviewed Akin, The Jaco Report reconsiders the moment,” Columbia Journalism Review 9August 23, 2012): https:// archives.cjr.org/united_states_project/back_story_the_reporter_who_in.php

Andrew Kaczynski, “Trump-backed House candidate has history of conspiratorial tweets and defended anti-Semitic Twitter account,” CNN Politics (November 21, 2021): https:// www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/kfile-john-gibbs-donald-trump-michigan-gop-primary/index.html

Hannah Knowles, “Democrats seek edge with women as Michigan prepares to vote on abortion,” Washington Post (August 9, 2022): https:// www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/abortion-michigan-midterms-ballot-measure/

Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections: https:// uselectionatlas.org.  I used this site’s county election returns.

Statement on the Dobbs v. Jackson Pro-Life Supreme Court Ruling (June 24, 2022): https:// www.votejohngibbs.com/post/statement-on-the-dobbs-v-jackson-pro-life-supreme-court-ruling