How Thad Cochran snagged an unlikely runoff win

The Washington Examiner ^ | June 27, 2014 | CHRIS MCDANIEL

[don-o]

Sen. Thad Cochran pulled off a rare move in politics: An upset of an upset.

After the 76-year-old Mississippi Republican came in second in the state's June 3 primary to state Sen. Chris McDaniel, he rallied to pull off a surprising win in the runoff two weeks later.

So how did he do it?

Republican insiders and others who followed the race well told the Washington Examiner that Cochran's campaign and its outside supporters courted non-traditional primary voters, improved their ground game and sharpened their messaging to win the runoff.

“When we realized there was going to be a runoff, we thought McDaniel was capped with his support and that Sen. Cochran had a lot more upside he could tap into,” said Henry Barbour, who ran a pro-Cochran super PAC and served as the driving force behind the Mississippi GOP Establishment's push.

The Cochran campaign and its supporters made key adjustments for the two-week runoff campaign, changes that were at least partly enabled by Mississippi election law. The state doesn’t register voters by party and all primaries are open, with runoffs open to all registered voters, whether they voted in the initial primary or not, as long as they did not vote in another party’s primary.

Both Cochran and McDaniel increased their vote totals from the June 3 primary, but Cochran finished on top by 2 percentage points, 51 percent to 49 percent, or almost 7,000 votes, in round two.

Here are the factors credited by the pro-Cochran forces for the win:

• Courting non-traditional voters. The Cochran campaign and the outside groups that supported the senator make no bones about it: They targeted voters who typically vote Democrat, including teachers, union members and African-Americans.

[98ZJ USMC]

[i]Somebody here posted a flyer that Cochran’s people had distributed in black areas. It was appalling and I really think black people should be offended by the approach: Cochran will give you more food stamps, he’ll build a museum or something for MLK, he’ll give you more welfare benefits...meanwhile, it claimed that McDaniel had been affiliated with racist organizations, etc. (not true, of course).[/i]

Exactly. I'll give it to you in a nutshell: "More Free Shit." Period.

Wherever he is, I think MLK is giving a great big facepalm.

[98ZJ USMC]

Ooops, wrong tags.

[Hawthorn]

>> My mistake. Posting before coffee is not recommended <<

You should ask the Admin Moderator to correct it.

[Hawthorn]

>> You need a better proof reader. <<

Yepp, wee awl no Cochroan waz outta cite!

[Fresh Wind]

From all this, it’s pretty obvious that the Rats want to run against Cockroach rather than McDaniel.

[x1stcav]

That would be a perfect world.

[uncitizen]

It couldn’t have been written better by Haley Barbour himself.