Missouri Senate race not strange this time, just competitive

ST. LOUIS – Four years after a strange campaign kept one Missouri Senate seat in Democratic hands, the party is hoping to capitalize on anti-incumbent sentiment and claim the other.

Attention focused on Missouri in 2012 after Republican candidate Todd Akin’s comments on a St. Louis TV talk show that women’s bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy from what he called “legitimate rape.” Akin was trounced by incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

This year’s race between incumbent Republican Roy Blunt and Democratic challenger Jason Kander is garnering plenty of attention, too, but for a different reason: It’s close, and control of the Senate could be at stake.

A Kander win would be a coup for Democrats in a state where Republicans dominate the Legislature and haven’t lost a presidential race for two decades.