Just how lucky can an endangered incumbent get? Six years after Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Republican opponent opined on “legitimate rape,” her current challenger, state attorney general Josh Hawley, is being forced to contend with a troubling sex scandal involving the state’s Republican governor. That scandal is threatening to divide the GOP in a state that represents one of the party’s best pick-up opportunities this fall.

As former Missouri Republican Party chairman John Hancock put it recently to Politico: “I’m going to start having Claire McCaskill buy my lottery tickets.” Or as Ed Martin, who preceded Hancock as leader of the state GOP, told the New York Times: “Right now, [Gov. Eric] Greitens is a slow-moving disaster, and one of the people who can pay a price—is it 4 percent? Two percent? I don’t know—is Josh Hawley.”

And that was before the GOP-led legislature on Thursday called a special legislative session—the first in the state’s history—to further investigate possible impeachment charges against Greitens, who has been accused of coercing his hair dresser into preforming oral sex on him in 2015 and then threatening to release a naked photo of her if she told anyone. Greitens, a married father of two, admitted to having an affair with the woman but denies the nonconsensual allegations and is refusing to step down.

His accuser has detailed a troubling encounter in which she says Greitens touched her without her consent and coerced her into performing oral sex, allegations a special investigatory committee deemed credible last month. Greitens was also indicted in February on a felony charge of invasion of privacy for allegedly taking a naked picture of the woman without her permission.

So how does Hawley fit into all this? Democrats claim Hawley was all too happy to ignore reports of Greitens’ possible campaign violations when they were first reported, and that it was not until public opinion turned against the governor that Hawley announced he would take action. Hawley has joined other top Republicans in calling on Greitens to resign over the allegations of sexual misconduct, but Democrats are still spending big to link the two men in the minds of voters. Meanwhile, Greitens, who has lost the support of most of his party but still has some allies in the state, is seeking a restraining order against Hawley, claiming that he cannot conduct an impartial investigation after calling on him to resign.

If the scandal and ensuing fallout continues through the summer, it could prove to be the difference in a close Senate race. Missouri went for Donald Trump by 19 points two years ago, and the state’s Republican bent has long made McCaskill one of the Senate’s most endangered members.

Nonpartisan handicappers currently see the Missouri race as a toss-up, and a new Morning Consult survey found McCaskill has the worst job-approval ratings (38 percent approve, 45 percent disapprove) of any of the 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in a state Trump won in 2016. In the same poll, 53 percent of Missourians said it is “time for a new person” in her seat, compared to just 29 percent who think she deserves a third-term.

Republicans are hoping that Hawley can do what Rep. Todd Akin couldn’t in 2012, when he lost to McCaskill by 16 points after he said that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely become pregnant. While a sluggish start by Hawley resulted in some GOP jitters earlier this year, Hawley is still seen as a solid candidate, one who has drawn praise from both the Breitbart crowd and Never-Trump types.

But McCaskill isn’t just lucky in politics, she’s also good at them. Facing long odds six years ago, her campaign went up with an ad during the GOP primary calling Akin “too conservative,” ostensibly an attack on the gaffe-prone candidate but one that was designed to help him win the nomination. The bet paid off: Akin won the primary in early August and made his now infamous remarks before the month was out. McCaskill then coasted to a second term.