In what would be a major victory for the national tea party movement, conservative state senator Chris McDaniel leads six-term Senator Thad Cochran by a hair in Mississippi’s Republican Senate primary early Wednesday morning. Hours after polls closed, it is still too close to call. Both campaigns are watching anxiously to see if McDaniel crosses the 50% threshold to avoid a June 24 runoff.
With 99.5% of the vote in, McDaniel leads Cochran 49.6% to 48.9%, with minor candidate Thomas Carey taking 1.6% of the vote. McDaniel would be considered the favorite in a runoff, which tend to benefit candidates with motivated supporters who can make up for what is usually a steep drop-off in turnout.
McDaniel inspired tea party groups around the country, who saw him as their last best chance to defeat an incumbent Republican senator in 2014 and strike a blow against a GOP establishment that has grown increasingly active in defending its favored candidates.
McDaniel’s campaign faced a difficult May after four pro-McDaniel activists, including a prominent tea party leader and a former co-host of McDaniel’s radio show, were arrested in an alleged plot to break into a nursing home to film Cochran’s wife for an attack video. Cochran’s campaign quickly produced ads highlighting the scandal, but an investigation has yet to produce any links to McDaniel or his campaign, which condemned the incident.
Cochran is exactly the type of Republican senator the tea party loves to hate. He’s been in Washington for more than four decades, has won support at home by using his seniority to dole out federal dollars, and has shunned the theatrics of rising conservative stars like fellow Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Groups like Club For Growth, FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund flooded the state with money in hopes of unseating him. Outside groups spent over $5.2 million on behalf of McDaniel, whose own campaign raised only about $1.2 million.









