McCaskill absolutely would have lost, even his weak campaign would have been enough to cost had it not been for the gaffe, his money absolutely dried up afterwards. He was leading, and beginning to pull away in some polls. In fact the only reason mccaskill won by so much is all the undecideds broke for her at the end.
Many Republicans were leading in 2012 until... well, they weren't. Think of Tommy Thompson or Rick Berg. Candidates don't win by 16 points just because of one gaffe of their opponent. Akin's campaign made her look like a moderate, which was far more devastating than anything Akin said. 2012 was a massive Democratic wave year, no Democratic incumbent (including Tester) was going to lose that year. Yeah, undecideds broke for her at the end, but undecideds broke Democratic virtually everywhere else as well. Republicans made a ton of mistakes in 2012, and 2018 is their chance to prove that they have learned the lessons from 2012 (because if they haven't, MO will probably the only state they flip - and they'll lose NV, AZ and probably one or two other seats at the same time). Don't let anyone tell you that Democrats can't flip the Senate in 2018, they can if Republicans take things for granted again.
Exactly. 2012 was very winnable for Republicans, and many other seats could have flipped, but they all would have had to have had things go WAY differently.
