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(Reuters) - A prominent lawyer and leader of the Mississippi Tea Party, who was arrested in connection with photos posted online of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran's bedridden wife, died on Friday of an apparent suicide, the man’s attorney said. Mark Mayfield, 57, was a founding member of the state's Tea Party and had served as its vice chairman, the organization said. "This is a terrible tragedy that shouldn’t have happened," Mayfield's lawyer and brother-in-law, John Reeves, told Reuters. Mayfield was one of three men accused in May of conspiring with a blogger to illicitly take photos of Cochran's wife, who...

Chris McDaniel, the Republican candidate in last Tuesday’s GOP primary that fell just shy of defeating long-time incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), reacted to the outcome. McDaniel laid out his Republican credentials and questioned why his state’s Republican Party had gone to such lengths to for Cochran. “It was shocking,” McDaniel said. “I’m a two-term state senator. I’ve been a Republican since I was 13-years old. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve gone door to door. I’ve given money. I considered these men and woman to be my friends and colleagues. But desperation and the quest for power pushed them somewhat...

National Republican leaders trying to appeal to non-white voters are cringing over Senate candidate Chris McDaniel’s complaints that Democrats — most of whom are black in Mississippi — voted in the state’s GOP Senate runoff and helped six-term incumbent Thad Cochran capture the party nomination. “The more the tea party complains about how black voters vote for Republicans, I think they look racist and stupid,” said John Feehery, a GOP consultant in Washington. “We’re trying to get black voters. Now that one of our candidates got black voters, we should be happy about it.”... When reporters in Washington asked Sen....

"The McDaniel team made a huge strategic and tactical error in announcing they were sending poll watchers to blanket the majority-black precincts. Its one thing to use poll watchers to stop election day shenanigans. That is just good tough politics. However, it is a different matter to announce you are doing so and then just doing it in the black precincts. I've covered enough black politics and know enough black politicians to where I can comfortably say that announcing that poll watchers are going just to the black precincts is almost a declaration of war against the black community and...

A Guest Post by Rodney Lee ConoverIt’s sickening to hear people – some I really respect – sounding so wrong about “the death” of the Tea Party and how badly they’re doing in the 2014 elections. Sure, the trolls keep repeating it, but even in Republican circles I’m still hearing how the Tea Party has completely lost all influence in American politics and people are buying into it. To that I can only ask: What are you, new? When someone talks about the Tea Party being dead, or that “the brand” is damaged, or however the libs have managed to...

Chris McDaniel, onthe blatantly unethical and illegal tactics employed by Thad Cochran and Haley Barbour in the Mississippi GOP runoff Tuesday… “McDaniel: I am a two-term state senator, I have fought for this party my entire life, I’ve given money…I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do– and last night, they pulled over 35,000 Democrats into a Republican primary to defeat me…we feel betrayed. … Hannity: Do you foresee any circumstance under which you would support this guy? Because I don’t think I could do it. McDaniel: I prayed about it last night…my core principle is gonna have a hard...

Chris McDaniel just said "Remeber Mississippi sounds like good Rallying cry". He also said he is not giving up, and he is not going to stop fightign against the corruption.

It turns out the Republican Party can mobilize minority voters after all — by despicably playing the race card against its own base. In a kamikaze move that could’ve been sponsored by the Hemlock Society, a ruling class desperate for a Pyrrhic victory decided it was better to save fossilizing Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran than preserve whatever scintilla of party unity remains. It’s one thing to disagree with your base. It’s entirely another thing to use the most slanderous assaults on their character from their opponents for your own benefit. [.....] Numbers never lie. The GOP establishment mobilized Democrats to...

As we pointed out last week, there were several potentially illegal political games afoot in Mississippi to motivate Democrat voters to "switch" over to the GOP for a day to help save a 42 year Republican member of Congress. On top of that, millions of dollars from out of state liberal billionaires like Mike Bloomberg poured in at the last minute on that same incumbent’s behalf. You have to ask yourself why? When a primary election is lost fairly, I am all for unifying behind the victor and joining forces to fight in November. When an election is questionable, with...

The Chris McDaniel camp is crying foul over the Cochran campaign's outreach to Democrats in the state, and even the incumbent's advisors admit the cross over votes from Democrats made the difference.But as this Politico autopsy on the race shows, Cochran was able to eke out a narrow victory thanks to a truly massive effort in both Washington and Mississippi involving millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers: Dogged ahead of the primary by complaints about a lackluster field program and an unfocused campaign message (and candidate), Cochran’s campaign moved swiftly to reorient its operations for a second election on...

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...

Politico Defiant Chris McDaniel declines to concede in speech to supporters By ANNA PALMER | 6/25/14 12:24 AM EDT HATTIESBURG, MISS. — A defiant Chris McDaniel walked up to the podium at his election night headquarters here after the Republican runoff was called for his opponent Sen. Thad Cochran — and then he didn't concede. "We had a dream and the dream is still with us," said McDaniel to an increasingly vocal crowd, telling them that the fight is not over. "Today the conservative movement took a backseat to liberal Democrats in Mississippi." Cochran's strategy Tuesday was to expand...

Never mind that it’s 92 degrees and nearing the end of the day: Jenny Beth Martin has started jogging between houses. SNIP In from Georgia, Martin has been spending much of the past three weeks in the state, holding conferences, making fundraising calls, meeting with local chapters of the tea party, and yes, walking door-to-door to turn out the vote for conservative Senate hopeful Chris McDaniel. But unlike most volunteers here, as the head of the national Tea Party Patriots, a group she co-founded and helped bring to national prominence, she’s on track to make $450,000 this year doing all...

I am a lifelong Mississippian, and I was a Cochran supporter for years and had planned to vote for him again this time. However, I had a chance to meet Chris McDaniel at an event in DeSoto County. I grilled him and asked several questions about what he could do for us in Washington? For me, it is not all about the money. I believe in States supporting themselves. Federal funds should only be given to States in the event of an emergency. I think that was what our Founding Fathers thought too. I chose to vote for Chris McDaniel...

The campaign of Mississippi Senate hopeful Chris McDaniel has returned a donation from a controversial neo-Confederate supporter. A McDaniel spokesman declined to elaborate, but told Fox News First that the campaign gave back the $800 contribution from Carl Ford “as soon as we learned about it.” The campaign of embattled Republican incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran has attacked McDaniel for the donation from Ford, a Mississippi secessionist who was part of the defense team representing a Klansman convicted in 1998 of murdering a 1960s civil rights leader during the fight to desegregate the state.

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi — A new poll from WPA Research shows conservative Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel has shot up to an eight-point lead, outside the margin of error, over Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) a little over a week from the runoff election. The poll of 500 likely GOP primary runoff voters has McDaniel leading Cochran 49 percent to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided. McDaniel beat Cochran in the primary about two weeks ago, getting 1,300 more votes. The poll was conducted June 9 to June 10 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percent. Now, heading into the...

JACKSON, Miss., June 17 (UPI)--Mississippi Tea Party senate candidate Chris McDaniel has a new ally in his primary campaign against incumbent Thad Cochran: game show host Chuck Woolery. California-based conservative advocacy group the Tea Party Express announced Tuesday that it will be touring Mississippi with the former Dating Game host urging voters to support McDaniel in the state's upcoming runoff election."There is a strong sentiment of frustration with career politicians that continue to put the old politics of 'kicking the can down the road' in front of solutions," said Tea Party Express executive director Taylor Budowich according to The Washington...

BILOXI, Mississippi — It's been called the “nastiest primary in the country.” Now you can add allegations of “walking around money” and “vote buying,” a Democratic operative nicknamed “Scooby Doo,” and the testy denials of a Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) ally to the mix. Rickey Cole, the chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, says Cochran’s allies are paying Democratic operatives to help get out the vote with a questionable tactic. “Pete Pery” – the chairman of the Hinds County Republican Party – “is paying James ‘Scooby Doo’ Warren thousands of dollars to funnel to black preachers and others to get-out-the-vote...

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,...