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Chris McDaniel wants Mississippi GOP to name him winner of U.S. Senate runoff
McDaniel slams supporters of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran for “dirty tricks”
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
JACKSON, Mississippi (CFP) — Citing widespread voting irregularities, State Senator Chris McDaniel is asking the Mississippi Republican Party to overturn the results of the June 24 primary runoff and declare him the U.S. Senate nominee instead of incumbent Senator Thad Cochran.
State Senator Chris McDaniel
“They asked us to put up or shut up. Here we are. Here we are with the evidence,” McDaniel said at an August 4 press conference. “What we’re going to show is a pattern of conduct on the part of a number of people that demonstrates a problem with this election. The evidence is clear.”
“We saw the dirty tricks. We saw the dirty money come from Washington D.C.,” he said. “Through the actions they took, they moved more than 40,000 Democrats into the Republican primary, and in so doing, mistakes were made.”
McDaniel led Cochran in the first round of voting on June 3. But after making direct appeals to Democratic and independent voters to cross over and vote in the runoff, Cochran erased McDaniel’s lead and won by 7,667 votes.
About 67,000 more people voted in the runoff than in the primary, and in Hinds County — which includes the predominantly black city of Jackson — Cochran’s margin of victory was 11,000 votes, nearly double what it was in the first round.
State law only allows voters to cross over to vote in the Republican runoff if they didn’t vote in the Democratic primary in the first round. McDaniel’s attorney, Mitch Tyner, said there were at least 3,500 crossover votes that should not have been allowed.
Tyner also said another 9,500 votes were “irregular,” and 2,275 absentee ballots were improperly cast. Those votes, together, are more than Cochran’s margin of victory.
McDaniel is asking the executive committee of the Mississippi Republican Party to declare him the winner, rather than calling for a new election.
“We anticipate that after they review the challenge that they’ll see Chris McDaniel clearly, clearly won the Republican vote on the runoff,” Tyner said. He said the state party doesn’t rule on the challenge in 10 days, McDaniel will go to court to overturn the election.
McDaniel also asked the executive committee to hold a public hearing to consider the evidence his supporters have collected.
“This is an opportunity for our party to take the lead on honest, good and transparent government,” he said.
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran
Responding to McDaniel’s challenge, Mark Garriga, an attorney for Cochran’s campaign, said “we are dedicated to the defense of the votes of those Mississippians who voted on June 24 for Thad Cochran as their United States Senator, an election which has been as thoroughly reviewed and examined as any in modern Mississippi history.”
“The filing of this challenge marks the point where this matter moves from an arena of press conferences and rhetoric into a setting where nothing matters but admissible evidence and the rule of law,” Garriga said in a statement.
The bitter Senate race in Mississippi pitted Cochran and the state’s Republican establishment against Tea Party activists and outside conservative groups — such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth — that strongly backed McDaniel.
Cochran was one of five Southern Republican senators targeted in primaries this year. Four of them survived, with a fifth race to be decided August 7 in Tennessee.
View video of McDaniel’s press conference:
Poll: Arkansas U.S. Senate race is still a dead heat
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton’s slight lead over U.S. Senator Mark Pryor is within the margin of error
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — Less than four months before election day, a new poll in the U.S. Senate race in Arkansas shows a statistical toss-up between Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
The Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College poll of 1,780 likely voters showed Cotton with 44 percent support, compared to 42 percent for Pryor. That was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
The latest poll showed a slight shift from April, when Pryor held a 3-point advantage over Cotton. But the race still remains a toss-up, despite a deluge of negative television ads aired by both campaigns and their allied outside groups.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
Cotton partisans have hit Pryor for his ties to President Barack Obama, particularly his vote in favor of Obamacare. Pryor and his advocates have hit Cotton as being a tool of outside billionaires and out of touch with Arkansas voters, highlighting his votes against the federal farm bill and disaster relief.
In the latest poll, Cotton held a nearly 17-point margin over Pryor among independent voters. But Pryor held a 5-point lead among female voters and a whopping 57-point lead among African-Americans, who make up about 16 percent of Arkansas’s population.
David Perdue wins Georgia GOP Senate runoff
Perdue defeats U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston and faces Democrat Michelle Nunn in November
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — First-time candidate David Perdue has taken a major step toward securing a seat in the U.S. Senate by narrowly winning the Republican runoff for Georgia’s open seat.
U.S. Senate nominee David Perdue
Perdue, a businessman from St. Simons Island, defeated U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, 59, an 11-term congressman from from Savannah, with 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for Kingston.
Perdue led after the first round of primary voting on May 20. Although Kingston secured endorsements from the third and fourth place finishers in the crowded primary, Perdue carried the vote-rich Atlanta suburbs in the runoff to claim victory.
Perdue will now face Democrat Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Georgia U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Despite the Peach State’s Republican tilt, recent polling has shown a potentially competitive race this fall.
Perdue made clear in his victory speech that he plans to tie Nunn, who is running for office for the first time, to President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Washington.
“We’ve got a mission in front of us. Our opponent should not be taken lightly,” he said. “This fall, we’re going to have a clear choice. And that is a choice we’re going to have to win for our kids and grandkids. We’ve had enough of this the last six years.”
Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn
Nunn, 47, was the CEO of the Points of Light Foundation, affiliated with former Presdent George H.W. Bush.
During the heated runoff campaign, Kingston ran ads attacking Perdue’s conservative bona fides on issues including the Common Core education standards and immigration.
Perdue criticized the veteran congressman for being part of the high-spending Washington establishment.
The seat opened up when U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss decided to retire.
Reality star with drug conviction files to run against U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham
Thomas Ravenel, a once-rising GOP political star in South Carolina, seeks a comeback as an independent
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CFP) — After successfully fending off a gaggle of GOP primary challengers, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham will likely face a Republican-turned-independent with a checkered and colorful past in November.
Senate candidate Thomas Ravenel
Thomas Ravenel, 51, who resigned as South Carolina state treasurer in 2007 after being arrested on cocaine distribution charges, collected more than 16,000 signatures to qualify as independent. If those signatures are certified, he will be on the ballot against Graham this fall.
Ravenel spent 10 months in federal prison on the drug charges. He is also a cast member on the Bravo network’s reality show Southern Charm.
As a convicted felon, Ravenel won’t be able to vote for himself, although federal law does not prohibit felons from running for federal office.
Speaking to reporters after delivering his petition signatures on July 14, Ravenel admitted he was an “imperfect messenger.”
“My personal life is my problem,” he said. “Lindsey Graham’s public life is your problem — everyone’s problem.”
In recent media interviews, Ravenel has touted his libertarian positions, saying one of his political causes would be drug legalization.
Ravenel hails from a prominent Charleston family and is the son of former Republican U.S. Rep. Arthur Ravenel Jr. He was considered a rising star when he was elected state treasurer in 2006, but he was forced to resign after just seven months in office after being arrested on the cocaine charges.
He also pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges in New York in 2013.
While Graham’s campaign has not commented on Ravenel’s entry into the race, the South Carolina Republican Party issued a blistering denunciation, calling his campaign a publicity stunt.
“His so-called campaign an embarrassment, and the people of South Carolina don’t appreciate it one bit,” Republican spokesman Matt Orr said in the statement.
But the Palmetto State is no stranger to political redemption. Former Governor Mark Sanford won a seat in the U.S. House in 2013 despite a messy scandal involving clandestine trips to visit an Argentinian mistress.
Graham was the No. 1 target of Tea Party and outside conservative groups who tried to oust him in June’s Republican primary. He won but with just 56 percent of the vote — potentially leaving room for a conservative independent candidate such as Ravenel.
Also in the race is Democratic State Senator Brad Hutto.
Analysis: Why Chris McDaniel’s fight won’t succeed even if it does
The best possible outcome — overturning his primary loss — won’t get him to the U.S. Senate
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and his supporters are still seething over his primary runoff loss to veteran U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, particularly vexed by the fact that the only way Cochran survived was with Democratic cross-over votes.
In the weeks since the runoff, McDaniel has been making noise about a court challenge to the result and has even been raising money to pay for it. His camp claims to have evidence of more than 8,000 questionable votes — a number of voters larger than Cochran’s margin of victory.
State Senator Chris McDaniel
Such a court challenge might be satisfying for people who think they were cheated out of a much anticipated victory. But would it be wise?
Consider the best possible outcome for McDaniel. It is exceedingly unlikely that a judge would just toss the result and hand the GOP nomination to McDaniel. A more possible (but not likely) scenario is that a judge throws out the primary result and orders the runoff to be rerun.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that McDaniel wins the third time around. He would be the nominee of a fiercely divided party. The atmosphere between his supporters and Cochran’s would be poisonous. The Democratic nominee, former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers, would be in the driver’s seat come November.
In that case, the Republican nomination would be a thing not worth having. And McDaniel would take the blame.
An even worse possible outcome for McDaniel would be to try to overturn the result and lose. Right now, he has political capital from being perceived as a wronged party. He still has a future in statewide politics. But if he drags Mississippi Republicans through a bitter fight, that capital vanishes.
History gives us two examples that are pertinent here.
In 1960, Richard Nixon narrowly lost the presidency under questionable circumstances. But he decided not to contest the results. Eight years later, he was president.
In 2000, Al Gore decided to put America through Florida recount hell, even though he knew he was unlikely to prevail. It was the end of his political career.
Nixonian behavior is not normally recommended. But there are times when the best thing to do in a bad situation is just walk away, no matter how unfair it might seem at the time.
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