Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

Missouri: Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum Throw Support Behind Beleaguered Todd Akin 
  
 By Niels Lesniewski 
  
 Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has decided to wade into the Missouri Senate race in support of GOP Rep. Todd Akin. 
  
 DeMint is joining former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a fellow social conservative who sought the Republican presidential nomination this year, in endorsing Akin’s controversial candidacy. 
  
 In a statement released through Santorum’s Patriot Voices PAC, DeMint and Santorum made a fundraising appeal for the beleaguered Republican Senate candidate. 
  
 “Todd Akin is a principled conservative who is committed to winning and fighting for freedom in the U.S. Senate. Todd will work to stop reckless spending, stop the out of control debt, repeal the government takeover of healthcare, support our military and defend life at every stage,” DeMint and Santorum said. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us so we can save our country from fiscal collapse.” 
  
 Unseating Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is one of the keys to securing a Republican majority in the Senate next year, a task that has become much more difficult with Akin as the nominee. Roll Call moved the rating of the Missouri race from Tossup to Leans Democratic on Tuesday after it became no longer possible for Akin to vacate the November ballot. 
  
 “Simply put, we cannot afford six more years of Senator McCaskill,” DeMint and Santorum said. 
  
 The endorsement from two leading conservatives comes hours after fellow Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt threw his support behind Akin. DeMint’s endorsement in the race also comes just one day after the Senate Conservatives Fund circulated a survey trying to determine if that group should help bankroll the effort to elect Akin. 
  
 While very conservative on social issues, Akin had been an earmark supporter throughout his career in the House, but he recently shifted his position. That may be significant in part because DeMint has been a longtime skeptic of the earmarking process. 
  
 The National Republican Senatorial Committee and political action committees aligned with the Republican establishment have steered clear of Missouri ever since Akin made much-criticized comments about “legitimate rape.” 
  
 While some polls have shown the race could still be within reach for the GOP, Republicans may be waiting to see what happens after McCaskill unleashes a barrage of advertising criticizing Akin. She had mostly kept her powder dry until Tuesday’s deadline passed for Akin’s name to be replaced on the ballot. 
  
 Correction: Sept. 27 
  
 An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified former Sen. Rick Santorum’s PAC. It is the Patriot Voices PAC. ||||| The final deadline for Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race came and went yesterday. With the Republican hopeful's name finally set in stone on the state ballot, Sen. Claire McCaskill wasted little time unleashing her first direct attack on Akin and the "legitimate rape" comments that nearly forced him from the race. 
  
 McCaskill and her Democratic allies saw a head-to-head match-up with Akin as the senator's best chance to retain her seat—even before Akin's controversial comments this summer upended what was shaping up to be a tight race. The senator and her reelection team avoided bashing Akin these past few weeks (even going as far as to occasionally defend his right to remain in the race), in what amounted to a not-so-secret ploy to help ensure that Republicans didn't replace Akin with someone better equipped to defeat her in November. |||||

Seems like only last month that Republicans were fighting each other over who got to throw Todd Akin under the bus first, but today the embattled Senate candidate has picked up endorsements from Jim DeMint and Rick Santorum. The über-conservatives are throwing their support to Akin, urging supporters to donate to his cause, Roll Call reports. "Todd Akin is a principled conservative," they say in a press release from Santorum's Patriot Majority PAC. "We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us." Akin has also gotten an endorsement from would-be Senate colleague Roy Blunt. Akin's race against Claire McCaskill is seen as critical in determining control of the Senate, and Slate notes that the final deadline for him to drop out passed yesterday. McCaskill, who had been largely silent in hopes that Akin would stay in the race, wasted no time in pummeling him, releasing an ad bashing his legitimate rape comment.