Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Wednesday that his controversial comments regarding conception following rape are being taken out of context. At a Tuesday night debate versus Democratic opponent Joe Donnelly, he said that when women become pregnant after being raped, “that’s something God intended.”

The Indiana state treasurer said Tuesday in response to a question about abortion rights: "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen."

Mourdock, a favorite of Tea Party supporters, said Wednesday that his comments were inelegantly stated, and subsequently mischaracterized by Democrats.

"I am a much more humble person this morning. Because so many people mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points that I was trying to make," he said at a press conference in Indiana. "And if, because of the lack of clarity in my words, that they came away with the impression other than I stated a moment ago -- that life is precious, that I abhor violence and that I'm confident God abhors violence and rape -- if they came away with any impression other than that, I truly regret it."

Mourdock's comments not only threaten to make a competitive Senate race more challenging for the GOP, but also, by proxy, exacerbate Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's struggles with female voters.

Romney appeared in a television ad on Monday that endorsed Mourdock, the only such ad the GOP standard-bearer has cut for a Senate candidate this cycle. The Romney campaign released a statement on Tuesday evening taking exception to the Indiana Senate candidate's comments, and Mourdock said on Wednesday that he hadn't spoken to Romney or any other Republican who had urged him to apologize.

Romney's campaign issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating its support for Mourdock, while emphasizing its differences from Mourdock on allowing abortion in cases of rape and when the mother’s health is in danger.

Democrats have tried to make hay of the controversy, releasing a flurry of statements demanding that Romney more forcefully disavow Mourdock and take down the television ad. (Mourdock said Wednesday that the ads continued to run in Indiana.)

"For those who kind of want to twist the comments, and use them for partisan, political gain -- I think that's wrong with Washington these days," Mourdock said of the response his comments had provoked. "I'm confident that Hoosier voters are going to be moving on and supporting us in big numbers in 13 days."

The controversy threatened to remind voters of other Republicans' comments this election about rape, most notably Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's comments earlier this summer asserting that "legitimate rape" rarely results in pregnancy. Republicans more sharply distanced themselves from Akin, a congressman, and urged him to drop out of the race.

Akin never withdrew, though, a move which is widely regarded to have hurt the GOP's chances of beating Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri and, by extension, retake the U.S. Senate. Republicans must pick up a bet of four seats on Nov. 6 -- three, if Romney is elected president -- in order to wrest control of the upper chamber from Democrats. The GOP entered the 2012 elections with hopes of achieving that goal, but candidates' missteps and better-than-expected performances by some Democrats have made control of the Senate an open question in this election.

Whether this hurts Mourdock's race versus Donnelly -- or is able to translate into a political millstone for Romney -- is an open question in the waning days before Election Day. Mourdock took strides toward reassuring important women voters of his stance.

"I don't think God wants rape, because rape is evil," he said. "I want to assure every woman who hears this, who hears the story of this, that I abhor it, and I'm confident God abhors this."

INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- After Thursday night's vice presidential debate, former President Bill Clinton said he now sympathizes with Paul Ryan, the man he said had the "brass" to criticize President Barack Obama's Medicare savings in health care reform.

Stumping here for the Indiana Democratic party on Friday, Clinton said Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan "let the cat out of the bag" when he squared off against Joe Biden in Kentucky last night.

"You know, I kind of sympathize with Congressman Ryan, he has to defend now Gov. Romney's position that the $716 billion in Medicare savings in the president's budget -- that the congressman voted for -- is somehow a ripoff even though it was in his budget too."

Fact checkers have debunked GOP claims that Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare, and on the stump Clinton has vigorously attempted to defend Democrats record on the hot button issue, most notable at the Democratic National Convention, when he satirically quipped that Ryan had "brass" for critiquing cuts so similar to ones proposed in the budget he authored.

Romney campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg countered that "[Obama] has done nothing to reform Medicare for the long haul and prevent it from going bankrupt. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have a plan that protects Medicare for current seniors and preserves and strengthens it for future retirees."

Related: Biden plays aggressor in debate as Ryan argues GOP case

But it was more than just Ryan's stance on Medicare that stood to Clinton during last night's debate.  He used his stop in Indiana, where the auto industry plays an important role, to take a jab at Ryan's answer to a debate question about Romney's opposition to the auto bailout.

"When Mr. Ryan said last night that Gov. Romney was a car guy, I thought 'Well if having an elevator to stack them counts, I guess he was,' Clinton said. "Let me tell you something about this car thing, it was not a bailout, it was a restructuring that we as taxpayers participated in because the banks were unwilling to save the automobile companies."

The high profile Democratic surrogate was here for the "Hoosier Common Sense" rally for Indiana Democratic senate candidate Joe Donnelly and gubernatorial candidate John Gregg. Both races have garnered plenty of national attention and give the Hoosier State a rare chance to elect both a Democratic senator and governor in the same year.

Clinton, who stressed the need for bipartisanship in Washington, sought to paint Donnelly's opponent, Republican Richard Mourdock, as an extremist unwilling to work across the aisle.  It's a position Mourdock himself has seemed to at times endorse, like in May when he told NBC's Chuck Todd that "bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view." The Republican senate candidate unseated 36-year incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar in a primary where one of his main attack lines dealt was Lugar's history of bipartisanship.

Related: Ryan wades deep into lengthy Afghanistan argument

"I was raised to believe that nobody's right all the time. Now, maybe Mr. Mourdock is, I don't know. He's way right all the time, I know that," Clinton said to loud applause at North Central High School.

Clinton painted Rep. Mike Pence, campaigning against Gregg for governor, as an equally partisan politician largely void of a record of accomplishment. "It would be like a cold shower for Congressman Pence if he were to become governor, because in the statehouse, you don't have an option of arithmetic rules. And you can't not pass bills. you can't get re-elected like you can to Congress, apparently you can get re-elected for a dozen years and never pass a bill," said Clinton.

Also joining Clinton on stage in the Hoosier State was was former Sen. Even Bayh. Clinton told the crowd that all four men were more fiscally conservative than both Romney and Ryan "because, as I said in Charlotte, we believe in arithmetic."

The former president has had a packed schedule campaigning both for Obama and Democratic congressional candidates around the country. From Indiana, Clinton headed to Iowa to help raise funds for Democrats in the Hawkeye State.

"I didn't expect to be quite so involved in this campaign. I have now a daughter who's working for  television network and a wife who's got one of only two jobs in the government, the other being secretary of defense, that are prohibited from participating in electoral politics, so you're stuck with me," Clinton said.

Updated 8:50 p.m. — Mitt Romney added to his delegate count on Tuesday by sweeping the first set of primaries since his main Republican rivals have both ended their campaigns.

The presumptive Republican nominee won the primaries in Indiana, West Virginia and North Carolina, according to Associated Press projections. Between those three states, a total of 107 delegates were at stake in Tuesday's primaries.

Follow full primary results here

Romney entered the contests having won 856 of the 1,144 delegates needed to formally secure the nomination. North Carolina awards 52 delegates, allocated proportionally by statewide vote, while Indiana awards three delegates to winner of its nine congressional districts. West Virginia's delegates are all elected directly on the ballot.

These contests were the first since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dropped his bid for the Republican nomination, and the first since former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's late-night endorsement of Romney on Monday.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has continued with his campaign, which has involved an additional strategy of picking off delegates in states that delay formal allocation of delegates to candidates.

Darron Cummings / AP

Senate candidates running in the GOP primary, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,and Richard Mourdock, left, participate in a debate Wednesday, April 11, 2012, in Indianapolis.

In the 2010 midterm elections, the GOP was jarred by an array of suddenly-potent Tea Party-backed challengers taking on the party establishment. The movement achieved mixed results overall, but resulted in a Republican Party heavily influenced by it.

History is repeating itself in Indiana where one of the Senate’s two longest-serving Republicans, Richard Lugar, 80, who was first elected in 1976, is facing a challenge in the May 8 primary from state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who became famous in 2009 for opposing the auto industry bailout and the forced write-downs for Chrysler bond holders. 

Mourdock is backed by Tea Party activists, the Club for Growth, the National Rifle Association, and old-line social conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly.

As Lugar struggles to fend off Mourdock’s challenge, Democrats hope their candidate, Rep. Joe Donnelly, will profit from the GOP schism and pick up the incumbent’s seat in November.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Wednesday, “The race is very close now and it’ll be decided on May 8 and a number of factors could apply. Obviously turnout is important. Gov. (Mitch) Daniels’s ad supporting Sen. Lugar is a very positive development for him,” he said. “But our job is to hold the seat (in November) and we’ll support the nominee in the general election, but I think we will hold that seat regardless of what happens in the primary.”

A Lugar loss would end the political career of a man who was first elected in 1964 to the Indianapolis school board and who in the 1970s was known as “Richard Nixon’s favorite mayor” when he held that office in Indianapolis. Since taking his Senate seat in 1977, Lugar has become his party’s cerebral foreign policy expert.  

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. who serves alongside Lugar on the Foreign Relations Committee, said “the knowledge that Sen. Lugar has – having worked on these issues for decades – has been invaluable ... Certainly he’s someone who’s very respected in the Senate and he’s listened to by both sides of the aisle.”

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But no matter how deeply respected Lugar is on Capitol Hill, Mourdock’s charge is that Lugar isn’t conservative enough – although Lugar’s lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, based on dozens of roll call votes, is 77 out 100, putting him a long way from Senate GOP centrists such as Olympia Snowe of Maine, who has a 48.5 lifetime ACU rating.

Mourdock’s campaign ads regularly link Lugar with Democratic President Barack Obama. Early in Obama’s Senate stint, Lugar helped him establish his foreign policy credentials. In 2005 Obama accompanied Lugar on a trip to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan to inspect weapons dumps and sites where smallpox and other pathogens were kept.

“When Dick Lugar moved to Washington, he left behind his conservative Hoosier values,” Mourdock says in one of his television spots. “How else to explain his support for amnesty, for Obama’s liberal Supreme Court choices, even his vote to bail out Greece?”

An ad the NRA has run against Lugar tells viewers that, “Some things shouldn’t change. Our Indiana values, stewardship of the land, and the protection of our Second Amendment and hunting rights. But over his 36 years in Washington, Dick Lugar has changed ... He’s become the only Republican candidate in Indiana with an “F” rating from the NRA.”

The NRA grievance against Lugar goes way back: he voted for Bill Clinton’s 1993 Brady handgun bill and for the ban on certain semiautomatic weapons, called “assault weapons” by gun control advocates.

Lugar, always avuncular and courteous, told reporters this week in Washington that his battle with Mourdock is “a very close contest (and) has been throughout.”

Asked about Mourdock’s view that he has changed in his years in Washington, Lugar chuckled amiably and said “I think it’s his view but we’re getting along fine with voters.”

Since last year, Democrats have accused Lugar of being detached from Indiana issues and denounced him for living in Virginia. They gained ammunition when he had to reimburse the Treasury for some hotel stays in Indiana that were charged to his Senate office account. On the residency issue, Lugar said Tuesday, “It was clearly somebody engaging in negative campaign research, trying to find some difficulty.”

Since this is his first primary challenge since 1976, is it difficult since he’s perhaps out of practice? “No,” Lugar replied, “I’ve been campaigning all over the country for the last 35 years and I’m campaigning vigorously again this time ... This is a very vigorous experience and we’re doing the best we can.”

The Republican fratricide in Senate races two years ago had at best mixed results for party leaders.

Darron Cummings / AP

Brent Gentry shows his support for Richard Mourdock before a U.S. Senate debate Wednesday, April 11, 2012, in Indianapolis. Mourdock is running against Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

One of the GOP incumbents, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, ultimately survived after losing the Republican primary by running in November as a write-in candidate.

Establishment GOP candidates in Arizona, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Missouri defeated their conservative primary opponents and went on to win in November. The party favorite in Washington beat his conservative challenger in the primary, then lost in November.

Elsewhere, conservative challengers forced one GOP senator, Robert Bennett, into retirement in Utah and another, Arlen Specter, into switching parties in Pennsylvania.

Conservative favorites won four Senate seats (in Pennsylvania, Utah, Kentucky, and Florida), but lost to Democrats in four other Senate contests (Delaware, Connecticut, Nevada, and Colorado) – races which more mainstream Republican candidates might have won.

One of the Establishment GOP victims of the Tea Party surge in 2010, was former Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, who lost to Christine O’Donnell – who then was defeated by Democrat Chris Coons in November.

Castle is now a partner with the DLA Piper law firm.

Reflecting on the parallels with his bitter loss to O’Donnell two years ago, Castle said if Lugar loses the primary, “it has the effect of making it more and more difficult for people who take middle-of-the-road positions, who try to work with both sides of the aisle to get things done ... .”

The Tea Party trend puts such pragmatism, Castle said, “at jeopardy in the Republican Party ... It moves the party not just further to the right, but to a much more conservative stance than it used to have. It’s going to ultimately lead to a minority status in the country.”

Pointing to the danger of Mourdock winning the primary but losing to Donnelly in November, Castle said that for Indiana Republicans, Lugar “may not be 100 percent what they might want, but the alternative is you may elect somebody from the other party.”

Castle’s campaign fund has given $1,000 to Lugar’s campaign.

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Seeing the race from a different angle, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, whose Senate Conservatives PAC supported O’Donnell against Castle and Sharron Angle in Nevada in 2010, said, “Richard is a friend of mine – but of course, we’ve got two Richards in that race. Dick Lugar is a friend of mine, but I’d be honored to serve with Mourdock. He’s clearly someone who is in line with some of the things we’re trying to do,” but he added, “I’m not going to get involved” in the Lugar versus Mourdock primary. “I’m not involved in any incumbent races right now.”

Meanwhile Democrats are waiting to take on the survivor of the GOP primary. "While Joe Donnelly has been focused on jobs and the economy, both Richard Mourdock and Dick Lugar have spent the last year slinging mud, pandering to the Tea Party, and showing voters that they're both of touch with Indiana's middle class. Joe's candidacy gives us an excellent chance of winning in November regardless of who Republicans nominate," said Shripal Shah, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Despite the Democrats touting Donnelly's chances, there are echoes of Indiana’s 2010 Senate race when Democrats had hopes for former Rep. Brad Ellsworth, a centrist Democrat with a voting record much like Donnelly's.

Ellsworth ended up losing by 14 percentage points to Republican Dan Coats. Democrats say 2012 isn't 2010; turnout this year is going to be significantly higher and the economy is healthier now than it was in 2010.

But Donnelly voted for the Obama health care bill and for his stimulus plan, neither of which will help with conservative voters in Indiana. And his fund-raising has been less than stellar.  

Democrats privately say that Donnelly runs stronger against Mourdock than against Lugar.

Tom Williams / Roll Call/Getty Images

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., talks to a reporter before the Senate Republican Policy luncheon in the Capitol.

“Yeah, I understand that,” Cornyn said. “Sen. Lugar is a legend in Indiana. To show how quickly things change, six years ago, he was uncontested in the Republican primary and in the general election ... But it will probably make it more of a contest if Sen. Lugar is not the nominee, but I’m confident we’ll hold the seat.” Cornyn said the Indiana race “is not one of my worries.”