Republicans dodged a bullet when Tea Party favorite Chris McDaniel was defeated in a Senate runoff election in Mississippi against Republican Thad Cochran, the state’s former Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday.
McDaniel could have been “Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock on steroids” if he’d won, argued Barbour, a big supporter of Cochran’s.
{mosads}Akin and Mourdock lost Senate races in 2012. Many Republicans believe comments the two made about rape and abortion contributed to their defeats and prevented the party from winning the Senate in that cycle.
Republicans made an effort in this election cycle to ensure they had a team of strong candidates, and the party worked to prevent McDaniel from defeating Cochran.
McDaniel beat Cochran in the Mississippi GOP primary, but not by enough to win outright. Cochran beat him in the runoff.
Barbour, in comments on MSNBC, argued McDaniel would have been a drag on the party’s prospects nationally had he won.
“Chris McDaniel said some things that everybody in our party would have had to either said they agreed with or disagreed with,” he said.
“We didn’t need another Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock on steroids.”