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A new poll released by Chism Strategies on the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate shows a statistical dead heat between incumbent Thad Cochran and challenger Chris McDaniel. In the Chism poll, Cochran now leads with 48 percent with 47 percent for McDaniel, within the margin of error of 3.3 percent. The statewide poll was conducted Friday night among 821 households and only included voters who voted in the June 3 Republican primary. The runoff election is June 24. Chism raises the following key questions in the "observations" section of the poll: -- Will traditional "general election Republicans" in university towns,...

BILOXI, Mississippi -- A new poll shows conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel with a commanding 12-point lead the runoff election in Mississippi’s GOP primary over six-term incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS). The Citizens United Political Victory Fund poll, conducted by Kellyanne Conway of The Polling Company, Inc., shows McDaniel has a 52 percent to 40 percent lead over Cochran.In a memo, pollster Conway noted too that McDaniel has an “intensity advantage” as 47 percent of his supporters say they are “definite” supporters whereas only 37 percent of Cochran’s say as much. “With eight days to go before the run-off election...

Haley Barbour almost certainly isn’t running for office again in Mississippi, but the former governor, one-time Republican National Committee chief and influential Washington lobbyist is playing a prominent role in the state’s battle for the GOP Senate nomination. Barbour is the patriarch of a politically savvy family driving Sen. Thad Cochran’s bid for a seventh term. Challenger Chris McDaniel and his tea party allies are holding up the GOP elder statesman as more proof that Cochran is little more than a creature of Washington. …

http://m.wapt.com/news/Case-Files-Cochran-one-on-one/26411892 Interview with Senator Cochran

A tea party officer and two others representing the challenger in a Senate primary became trapped in a courthouse in the middle of the night, hours after officials had gone home from counting votes, authorities said. Janis Lane, Scott Brewster and Rob Chambers were locked inside the Hinds County Courthouse more than an hour after entering shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday through an unlocked door, said Othor Cain, spokesman for the sheriff’s department, which is investigating. Noel Fritsch, spokesman for candidate Chris McDaniel, said the three went to check on why some precincts hadn’t been counted. Once inside, the door...

In one of the deepest-red states in an off-year election against a weak incumbent and lazy campaigner, the tea party forces spent millions of dollars — to get a tie. Tea partier Chris McDaniel barely edged ahead in the Mississippi GOP Senate primary and is headed for a runoff with Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). As I previously noted, Cochran has done little to deserve reelection, while challenger Chris McDaniel has done little to instill confidence. The concern that a McDaniel win could put in jeopardy a seat that might be the difference in control of the Senate is realistic and...

It’s the scenario that Republicans on both sides of Mississippi’s hard-fought primary battle had hoped to avoid: Neither candidate in Tuesday’s primary captured 50 percent of the vote, sending the race into a June 24 runoff election. It was a virtually unknown candidate, real-estate broker Thomas Carey of Hernando, Miss., who determined the outcome: With 99.5 percent of precincts reporting, he had captured 1.6 percent of the vote, keeping both incumbent senator Thad Cochran, with 48.8 percent, and his insurgent challenger, state senator Chris McDaniel, with 49.6 percent, under the 50 percent margin required to seize victory. Into the wee...

POLLS: Too Close to Call With the election TOMORROW, polls are showing the race between conservative Chris McDaniel and establishment entrenched Thad Cochran a virtual dead-heat.   While the Cochran campaign had a slight edge just one week ago, the McDaniel campaign has seen considerable momentum as of of late due to endorsements by major national conservative leaders from across the country such as Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and many more.  The election is TOMMOROW and represents one of the only opportunities for the Tea Party to oust a U.S. Senate Republican establishment career politician in Thad Cochran.  With the...

OXFORD, MISS. — Sen. Thad Cochran is closing out the final days of his primary campaign by promising voters that if he’s re-elected he will keep doing what he has done for decades: fighting to make sure that Mississippi gets its “fair share” of the federal pie. The promise of the Republican incumbent clashes with the limited government message that two-term state Sen. Chris McDaniel, his tea party-backed challenger, has espoused on the campaign trail, where he has called Mississippi a “welfare state,” pledged to get government off people’s backs, and blamed the likes of Mr. Cochran for the nation’s...

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi - The final push of the Tea Party-backed fight to defeat Sen. Thad Cochran in the Republican primary brought big names to Mississippi this weekend in support of conservative challenger Chris McDaniel. Sarah Palin came to campaign for him Friday: Had a great time today in the lovely Magnolia State rallying to elect Chris McDaniel to the U.S. Senate. It was wonderful meeting Chris’ beautiful family — and a special thank you to Chris’ son Cambridge for the gorgeous magnolia . . . This Mississippi senate race is a clear case of We the People vs. the permanent...

Audio/Video Ads Only: Sarah Palin has created a new radio ad for Chris McDaniel’s campaign: Likewise, Rick Santorum has a new TV ad for McDaniel via Political Victory Fund: So what big name is supporting Cochran? Trent Lott. I know. ZZZZzzzzzz:

Former candidate for U.S. vice president Sarah Palin will appear in Jones County on Friday at a campaign rally for Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Chris McDaniel.McDaniel's campaign emailed supporters on Thursday afternoon writing "Can you feel it? The momentum is with us. And I'm honored to announce that Sarah Palin is coming to Ellisville to support our campaign for freedom here in Mississippi!"The rally will begin Friday, May 30, at 11 a.m. at the Fine Arts Center at Jones County Junior College. 

MADISON, Mississippi—Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) told the Associated Press that if he’s re-elected, he plans to serve the full six years of what would be his seventh term in the U.S. Senate. “I sure hope, if I am alive and well, I'll be serving,” Cochran, who is facing a primary challenge from Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel, said when asked if he plans to serve all six year of a seventh term. “Yes, I think that's something the people have a right to expect, and I intend to serve a full term.” The pledge from Cochran is interesting because there's...

Mississippi Sen. Chris McDaniel was the guest speaker for the Noon Lion's Club of Cleveland Friday. He opened by using an analogy about Benjamin Franklin to explain his philosophy of the government. "Benjamin Franklin walked outside of the Constitutional Convention and he was stopped by a lady on the street. The lady said, ‘What is it that serves you justice?’ He then said to her, ‘A republic if you can keep it,’" said McDaniel. McDaniel regularly speaks to groups across Mississippi about the need for a return to the simple perfections of the Constitution. His writings are published in a...

JACKSON, Mississippi -- State Sen. Chris McDaniel says if he's elected to the U.S. Senate, he wants to reduce federal spending and work with Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, who were elected with the help of tea party voters.McDaniel, who was first elected to the state Legislature in 2007, is challenging longtime U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in the June 3 Republican primary.The contest has been dominated recently with news about a Mississippi blogger photographing Cochran's wife in the nursing home where she has lived the past 13 years with dementia. However, both candidates have said repeatedly...

Two major conservative groups are dropping more than half a million dollars into ad buys in Mississippi, two weeks ahead of the June 3 election, to give state Sen. Chris McDaniel an extra boost over six-term incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the primary. Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund is spending $400,000 on a new ad buy over television and radio and Citizens United Political Victory Fund is dropping $175,000 on a new television buy in the state, they both announced Wednesday. “What happened to Thad Cochran?” the TPPCF television ad’s narrator asks viewers. “He’s voted to increase the national...

Well, well, well. The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s staff has been all over the internet blaming Chris McDaniel for some nut job videotaping Mrs. Cochran. What’s more, they claimed that no one knew anything about anything other than the McDaniel campaign. But now we know they’re lying. Thad Cochran’s campaign knew about it for at least two weeks. It’s unclear why Cochran’s attorney, Don Clark, held the information for two weeks before alerting police. Clark did not respond to a request for comment. Maybe because they needed a couple of weeks to get everything set with the NRSC to coordinate...

A new Citizens United Political Victory Fund poll shows that six-term incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is slightly trailing his Tea Party challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel just a couple weeks from election day in Mississippi. The election is on June 3. The poll, conducted by pollster Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Company, Inc., found that McDaniel is beating Cochran 43 percent to 39 percent, respectively. A third candidate, Tom Carey, has 3 percent of voters according to the poll, and 12 percent of voters are undecided. Conway’s firm conducted the poll between May 14 and May 15, and it...

Chris' new ad!

Say what you will about Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), but they know a train wreck when they see it. They also know when to separate themselves from the cranks and the losers on the right. Although both supported the shutdown and were heartily supported by tea party groups in their own Senate races, neither one has endorsed Matt Bevin in Kentucky, Milton Wolf in Kansas or Chris McDaniel in Mississippi. In fact, Cruz’s office confirms he hasn’t endorsed anyone in the primaries. There are a few important lessons here. First, neither one of these guys wants...