Tuesday was primary day for voters in Alabama, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. In Mississippi, State Senator Chris McDaniel (R) squared off against four decade-long incumbent Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) in what was being described as one of the ‘nastiest’ races in the country.
Despite being far outspent in the race, McDaniel won the popular vote. He failed, however, to reach the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. McDaniel and Cochran will now face off in a runoff election on June 24. On radio this morning, McDaniel joined the program to talk about results of Tuesday’s vote and what comes next.
Depending on which poll results you look at, McDaniel secured anywhere from 49.5% or 49.8% of the popular vote – just tenths of a percentage away from the 50% needed. Cochran received just under 49% of the vote. Thomas Carey, the seldom-mentioned third challenger in the race, received less than about 1.5% of the vote.
“What is it- four-tenths of a point away from just having this thing done,” Glenn asked.
“Yeah, we won the popular vote. There's no question about that,” McDaniel said. “We made history last night in Mississippi, and, you know, against a 42-year incumbent, to win the popular vote, that's a big deal. But we do need just a few more votes to close the deal.”
The runoff scheduled for later this month is open only to Republican voters, which would prevent Democrats from throwing their support behind the more liberal Cochran. But it is unclear what role the GOP will play.
“I think either way we win,” McDaniel concluded. “You know, last night having the most popular votes, and to be up still this morning by 4,000 votes, that's a big deal for us… We feel confident about our message and the movement. The people of Mississippi are alive and they're awakened, so we're very excited.”
The Republican establishment is obviously throwing its support behind the longtime incumbent Cochran, and McDaniel admitted his campaign spent most of its funds in the lead up to Tuesday’s primary.
“So you know that they're going to probably do another multimillion-dollar blitz in the next three weeks,” Pat said. “I can imagine that you probably need some help financially to close this deal?”
“Absolutely, [we need] big time help financially, of course,” McDaniel said. “We had to spend most of our money to get to this point and, of course, won the popular vote. We should win the runoff. We're going to win the runoff, but we have to raise the money now to get from point A to point B.”
You can learn more about McDaniel’s campaign HERE.
