Posted on 06/25/2014 1:33:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) primary challenger Chris McDaniel is looking into possible legal routes to challenge Cochran’s runoff win.
Multiple sources tell The Hill that the campaign is evaluating their options after Cochran orchestrated an improbable win over McDaniel on Tuesday night, defeating the challenger by about 6,300 votes.
The campaign’s concerns hinge on heavily African-American Hinds County, which includes the state capital of Jackson and where nearly 70 percent of the residents are black and the voting population is more Democratic than most counties in the state. Cochran netted about 7,000 more votes there in the runoff than the first round of primary voting.
Cochran won the county during the first round of primary voting by a sizable margin, but the significantly increased turnout there this time around helped his lead.
More voters in Hinds County backed Cochran in the runoff — 17,927 — than the total number that turned out in the first round of GOP primary voting (16,640). Turnout increased by about 50 percent from the primary to the runoff, and Cochran expanded his portion of the vote from 66 percent to 72 percent.
That difference of 7,000 more votes than what he netted in the June 4 primary was critical to his slim margin of victory statewide. McDaniel picked up about 1,300 more votes from the primary to the runoff in Hinds County.
McDaniel seemed to hint at the likelihood of a legal challenge in a speech to supporters after the Associated Press called the race for Cochran.
“Before this race is over we have to make absolutely certain the Republican primary was won by Republican voters,” McDaniel said.
“Today the conservative movement took a backseat to liberal Democrats in the state of Mississippi,” said the state senator, adding that “there were literally dozens of irregularities” and “you know why.”
Cochran’s team made no secret of their efforts to turn African American Democratic voters out to the polls in the runoff, but the move drew heavy criticism from conservatives, some of whom have charged such a tactic may be illegal.
Mississippi election law allows Democrats who did not vote in the first primary round to vote in the GOP runoff, but conservatives backing McDaniel have argued the law prevents voters from supporting a candidate in the primary that they don’t plan to back in the general election.
That portion of the law is difficult to enforce, however, so it’s unclear how McDaniel’s campaign will challenge the ballot count.
McDaniel’s team suggested Hinds County GOP Chairman Pete Perry may be at fault.
Perry was paid by pro-Cochran Mississippi Conservatives PAC to conduct unspecified get-out-the-vote efforts for Cochran, a move that raised questions about a potential conflict of interest between Perry’s duties as county GOP chairman and his work for the Cochran campaign.
Perry was later accused by Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Ricky Cole of possibly paying an African-American Democratic political operative thousands of dollars to be used in a vote-buying scheme to turn out African American Democrats for Cochran in the runoff.
When contacted by The Hill, Perry denied any wrongdoing.
“I did not do anything wrong. My party ran the primary. We did not do anything wrong, period,” Perry said, and then hung up the phone abruptly.
Pete Perry, sold his soul and is now lying to himself.
Pete, seppeku.
Perry and his ilk = crooks = organized crime in stealing an election. Tar and feathers was the old time remedy....
It is anathema to the democratic process to have the Democrat opposition party’s voters choosing the nominee of the GOP, and vice versa. Shall Republicans now be allowed to choose whom the Democrat nominee will be ? A majority of Republican voters did not select Cochran as their nominee. This alone should disqualify him.
Senator Cochran, stand aside as the GOP nominee ! You did not obtain the nomination by honest, legitimate and ethical means, but by fraud, deception and chicanery. This is utterly shameful and despicable.
How about this... Perry, Cochran and Rove —— duct taped to one of Rove’s white boards and set out to float in a Mississippi swamp?
McDaniel can win in a write-in in November. The blacks that crossed over won’t be back for Cochran then.
Cochran’s despicable appeal to DEMOCRAT voters is a perfect illustration of the lack of ethics that epitomize the establishment GOP and is exactly WHY the Tea Party exists in the first place.
STOP OPEN PRIMARIES, you STUPID REPUBLICANS!!! DEMOCRATS DON”T HAVE OPEN PRIMARIES!!! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!!
“McDaniel can win in a write-in in November. The blacks that crossed over won’t be back for Cochran then.”
That’s how Lisa Murkowski did it in Alaska:
“......Murkowski was appointed to the United States Senate in 2002 and elected to a full term in 2004. Her 2010 re-election grew turbulent when former magistrate judge Joe Miller defeated her in the Republican primary. Murkowski mounted a longshot write-in campaign, winning the general election; the campaign made national headlines...”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Murkowski
Apparently, Cochran’s campaign sent out a campaign flyer in decidedly black Democrat Hinds County, that said the Tea Party was going to come out and prevent them from voting - Cochran stoked anger with a lie and the race card to defeat a conservative and smear the Tea Party.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/24/1309376/-Thad-Cochran-survives-thanks-to-Democrats
Isn’t it shameful how the GOPe fight down and dirty against their own in the primary(s) and in the general election against the democrats the GOPe campaign strategy is mamby-pandy, milquetoast, can’t we all just get along, OMG you can’t say that about our opponent, sorry sack of GOP elite?
Proves my point about STUPID OPEN PRIMARIES!!
He should be shunned and banished from the community. If he is in business, his business should suffer. He sold his soul for power and will probably prosper in future GOPe positions.
“..............The lesson of last night isn’t that the Tea Party is dead; indeed it’s impressive that McDaniel was able to accomplish what he did given his monetary disadvantage. It’s that, even in this age of fiscal conservatism, the GOP good ol’ boys network is alive and well. The right money and minds can still propel even the most cadaverous incumbent to victory. But you know what? It’s a lot harder than it used to be and we should be excited by that. In lieu of actual term limits, voters have taken it upon themselves to challenge lawmakers who get too crusty. It wasn’t a good night for Chris McDaniel, but it wasn’t a good night for the good ol’ boys either.”
http://spectator.org/articles/59751/revenge-good-ol-boys
Our voting system is broken and that is exactly the way the establishment wants it. The way it is set up they can manipulate any outcome they desire. Add to this online registration and voting and you can kiss this Republic good-by.
I am convinced that McDaniel can win in November but only as an independent whose name appears on the ballot.
May be illegal, but is positively unethical...this 'friend of the animals' needs to go in November.
You are deadright...I wonder how many states have these 'open primaries'? I know we have them here in corrupt soviet Red Hampshire, where Democrats routinely cross over to pick the weakest Republican candidate (see: McCain, Romney). Red Hampshire should have its 'first in the nation' status REVOKED.
CW, I'll respectfully disagree on some of the details but not the overall sentiment of your post.
First of all, it was a good night for McDaniel, and it wasn't about needing more money. McDaniels won by any decent measure of who was supposed to be voting. He ran a good campaign and only lost because he didn't stoop to the opposition level. How do the establishment dems and 'pubs really feel about exploiting a slave mentality among some dem voters who voted in a certain way because they were told to?
Manipulation of the process has been going on since relatvve unknown GWB was propped up as the "conservative candidate". Would the US have been in the mess we're in if we'd gotten a Quayle/Forbes presidency?
If Cocharan doesn't decline and McDaniels given the nomination, constitutional conservatives might as well say "forget it" about a majority in the US Senate. Do we really want Cocharan, McCain the ISIS guy and Murkowski who won by a sneaky deal part of a majority? Best to stick to the HOR and retake the power of the purse, work with articulate and a truly conservative minority in the US Senate. If Cocharan keeps the nomination, let the dems have that MI Senate seat!
This is the end of the myth that RINOs care more about defeating dems than they do about defeating constitutional conservatives.
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