Will Akin stay or go?

[Mr. Morden]

From PPP's Twitter feed, it looks like they're polling Missouri tonight, and will have numbers out within a few hours.  The poll may well determine what Akin decides to do tomorrow.

[Mr. Morden]

If Akin stays in the race, will we nonetheless see a large fraction of his campaign staff quit on him?

[Mr. Morden]

PPP previews their poll release:

"After all that Akin STILL leads McCaskill, 44-43. Little difference from our last poll which was Akin 45-44."

"75% of Missouri voters think Akin's comments were inappropriate, but they're still voting along party lines."

[Mr. Morden]

Hmm, if he stays in and actually remains competitive, I'm sure Republicans will find a way to pump money to him without looking hypocritical. This is unfortunate - this just gives him more of an excuse to stay in the race.

This looks like a case of "the better it gets, the worse it gets".  If Akin can poll competitively for a while (at least until late September, beyond which point I think it's impossible for him to get off the ballot), then he may stay in the race.  Yet McCaskill will get an infusion of $ that's bigger than she would have otherwise gotten, and Akin will not get the outside support he needs.  Sure, they may pump some $ in covertly, but it won't be as much as he would get in a normal competitive race like this.  Plus Akin will get no support from prominent surrogates, because other politicians won't want to be seen with him, and some of his own campaign staff may leave.

Best scenario for the GOP would be poll numbers that looked so bad that Akin could have been convinced to drop out, but the PPP numbers suggest that may not be coming.

[Mr. Morden]

If Akin's smart, he'll realize Rove and Cornyn are bluffing and will have to spend money here in October if he stays in and within striking distance.

But I don't see him getting the same level of support that a candidate in a similarly competitive race would have gotten under normal circumstances.  Enough party elders have declared Akin politically radioactive now that they'll have to be careful about how they handle this.  My gut tells me that Eraserhead's instincts here are right:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=157837.msg3393574#msg3393574

that Akin is probably toast one way or the other.  Even if the race is tied right now, I have the feeling that Akin is in a political death spiral.....though I'm uncertain about whether the death spiral will be slow enough that he'll decide to take his chances and stay in the race regardless.

[Mr. Morden]

We are at the height of the scandal right now and I guess Akin will recover from this blunder if he stays in the race (which I find the most likely scenario). Akin's favorability ratings are probably going to improve if he manages to lead a flawless campaign in the next weeks while McCaskill's numbers are unlikely to change much. So Akin still has a good chance to win this race.

What makes you think that he possess the ability to run such a campaign? When he was third in the polls and way back from Steelman, his entire campaign was essentially based around him getting headlines for making one stupid statement after another to bring attention to himself. Worse still, he didn't even really win the primary by any particular action that he took, but instead won it as a result of the actions taken by Steelman, Brunner and McCaskil.

This is why we should go back to the days of smoke-filled rooms to decide party nominees.  Using primaries as a method for selecting nominees is dumb.....though it does make things more interesting from a political spectator's point of view.