Senate candidates make final push in West Lafayette - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

The last full day of campaigning for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate brought sharp contrast.

Richard Mourdock was greeted by applause at Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette.

"Been a long 15 months to get here, but we are thrilled with what we're seeing," Mourdock told a voter.

A chance to mingle with the people he hopes will catapult him to the Republican nomination for Senator. But he did offer an olive branch to his opponent.

"I have never once, nor will I ever, think of Dick Lugar as my enemy. He is not. He is simply an opponent," he said to the crowd.

The man who currently holds the office, Sen. Richard Lugar, also started his day in West Lafayette at, of all places, a wastewater treatment plant.

"Senator, normally, experience, seniority, those are important. And yet, in some ways, it seems that's been held against you in this campaign," asked Eyewitness News.

"I understand and observed that. I think, hopefully, as people get ready to vote tomorrow, a degree of common sense and reality will return," Lugar replied

The Lugar campaign is also telling voters the GOP may not be able to gain control of the Senate without him, since Republicans need four seats to accomplish that.

"Does it make you angry when your competition says you're out of touch?" Eyewitness News asked.

"It's obviously incorrect, inaccurate, however you want to express this. I have no idea how in the world someone would make such an assertion and expect anybody to believe it," Lugar said.

Mourdock brushes that aside, confident he can hold the seat that Lugar has held for 36 years.

"I am not at all concerned about that. To that race, I have but two words, 'Bring it'," he said.

Mourdock also rebuked any allegations of a possible Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of him.

"Absolutely baseless, so we keep going and regret that that's the kind of tactics they want to try to use," Mourdock said.