Republican Dave Spence believes Todd Akin's controversial comments about "legitimate" rape helped doom his campaign for governor.

Spence, a St. Louis businessman who was making his first run for public office, discussed the campaign recently with political reporter Dave Drebes. Despite spending $6 million of his own money on the campaign, Spence was defeated by incumbent Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon by double digits.

From Drebes' interview:

Spence saw one major turning point of the campaign come in August. After winning the primary handily they ran a poll and were within single digits. But, to conserve cash, he went off the air. And during that downtime, Todd Akin gave his famous interview with Charles Jaco. Nixon, meanwhile, ran ads unabated. By the time Spence came back on the air – six weeks later – they were in the hole again, down 20-ish

Spence was clear that he wasn't saying Akin's comments cost him the race. It was only a factor. But it changed the trajectory of the campaign and prevented the media from focusing on issues, such as whether Nixon would support expanding Medicaid (which he did, shortly after the election was over).

Read Drebes' full article here.