Democrats cross the line to see off Tea Party
A VETERAN Republican senator has seen off a Tea Party challenger thanks to a surge of last-minute support from black Democrats.
Thad Cochran clung to his Mississippi seat only after the intervention of Democrat voters who exploited the state’s election rules to take part in a Republican primary.
They crossed party lines after an impassioned appeal from Cochran, a senator for the past 36
Black Democrat votes have cost Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel, left, his race for the nomination for a Mississippi senate spot. The Republican nomination was won by incumbent Thad Cochran. years, who warned that without their support he was heading to defeat by Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party insurgent.
After one of the most expensive and dirty primary campaigns in this year’s cycle of mid-term elections, Cochran squeaked home by about 6300 votes out of more than 375,000 cast.
McDaniel cried foul, saying that ‘‘voting irregularities’’ lay behind the result and refusing to concede. ‘‘There is something a bit unusual about a Republican pri- mary that’s decided by liberal Democrats,’’ he told supporters after Wednesday’s result.
Mississippi does not register voters by party affiliation, so the Republican primary was open to any voter as long as they had not already cast a ballot in the Democratic contest held earlier this month.
The heavily conservative state, the country’s poorest, has not had a Democrat senator for more than 25 years, making the Republican primary the crucial poll in deciding the state’s senators.
McDaniel’s defeat marks a blow for the Tea Party. Many conservatives believed he would win the primary after Cochran failed to secure the 50 per cent needed to win in the first round.
For Wednesday’s run-off, conservative groups backing McDaniel sent in poll monitors to ensure voters had not cast a ballot in both parties’ primary contests.
The move led to concerns over voter intimidation in a state with a history of racial segregation.
The result was remarkable for Cochran, whose credentials are hardly liberal.
Key to winning the support was his funnelling of billions to his home state over the years.
As such, black Democrats had ‘‘weighed the field and concluded that with Cochran, we know what we’ve got, and we like what we’ve got’’, said Wayne McDaniels, the Jackson branch president of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People