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Tag: mississippi elections 2014
McDaniel Formally Challenges Mississippi Runoff Results

McDaniel Formally Challenges Mississippi Runoff Results

Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel announced at a news conference on Monday that he is formally challenging his runoff loss to Senator Thad Cochran. Cochran won the Mississippi Republican primary runoff in June by 7,667 votes. But McDaniel’s lawyer, Mitch Tyner, argues that 15,000 votes are invalid.

Cochran triumphed largely because he was able to drum up Democratic support, especially from black voters in the state. Mississippi has an open primary, meaning that Democrats who didn’t vote in their party’s primary could participate in the Republican runoff. But McDaniel and other conservative groups have claimed that many Democratic votes should not have been allowed, and that McDaniel is the real winner.

The formal challenge states that election officials “did not maintain proper control of the election process,” and that too many people were allowed to vote via absentee ballot.

Tyner said that the campaign identified 3,500 voters who cast ballots in both primaries (which on its own wouldn’t be enough to invalidate the runoff), and over 10,000 votes that should be invalidated (9,500 questionable votes, and 2,275 improper absentee ballots).

One of those votes belongs to Cochran’s spokesman, Jordan Russell. McDaniel’s challenge states that Russell’s vote is being questioned because “there was no reason given for voting absentee.”

In the news conference, Tyner said that McDaniel doesn’t want another election; he just wants the state Republican executive committee to declare him the winner. McDaniel’s team wants the committee to hold a public hearing on the issue on August 12.

The formal challenge claims that Cochran’s team bought votes, despite a lack of evidence. It also argues that Democrats who plan to vote Democratic in the general election cannot vote in the Republican primary, citing a Mississippi state provision, and that Republicans “suffered a constitutional injury” in the runoff because they have a right to not be associated with Democrats.

Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen is skeptical. As he wrote, before the runoff the provision was widely viewed as “unenforceable,” as there is no way to prove whom a primary voter is thinking of voting for in the general election. “Neither the party nor the court will count [the Democratic votes] as fraud,” he predicted.

McDaniel’s campaign has also made it clear that he specifically wants to question the black votes that went to Cochran. The official press release that his team sent out stated, “Thad Cochran lost Republican votes in the runoff and made up the difference with Democrat votes.” But the original press release, obtained by The Daily Caller, had said “black Democrat” instead of just “Democrat.”

McDaniel’s challenge also suggests that the committee entirely discount the votes from Hinds County, which is 69 percent black, as their regression shows that McDaniel would have won by 25,000 votes without Democratic participation in the county.

The challenge concludes, “The June 24 election was a product of Democrat and unlawful votes. It does not reflect the will of the qualified Republican electors of Mississippi.”

According to Hasen, McDaniel’s odds of being declared the winner are almost nonexistent.

“There is nothing here that meets the standard to show enough fraud in the election to require it to be overturned,” he writes. “At most this shows that the elections were not administered competently in some jurisdictions.”

This isn’t just a local dispute. The Senate Conservatives Fund, of which former Virginia attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is now president, is committed to helping McDaniel challenge Cochran.

“When you look at what they did — the Establishment did — to try to hold onto their power, I mean, they literally adopted Democrat — worst Democrat — tactics,” he told The Washington Examiner. “The race-baiting, the pimping-out welfare and et cetera is what Thad Cochran was doing and the super PAC was doing.”

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

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Poll: 37 Percent Of Mississippi Republicans Would Back Confederacy In Civil War

Poll: 37 Percent Of Mississippi Republicans Would Back Confederacy In Civil War

During state Senator Chris McDaniel’s unsuccessful primary challenge to Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), he often exhorted his supporters to “reclaim your country again.”

Thanks to a new Public Policy Polling survey, we may have a better idea of what he meant.

The poll, released Tuesday, finds that 37 percent of those who supported McDaniel in the Mississippi Republican primary runoff would support the Confederate states if there were a second Civil War. Just 38 percent would back the United States, and 25 percent were unsure.

Cochran supporters — a group that included many black Democrats — are a bit more patriotic: 61 percent would back the Union, while 22 percent would support the Confederacy and 17 percent are not sure.

Overall, 37 percent of Republicans who voted in the runoff would side with the Confederacy, and 41 percent would side with the United States; 21 percent couldn’t decide.

A smaller, but still significant minority seems to have an appetite for sparking such a conflict; 16 percent of runoff voters support the South seceding from the United States and forming its own country, while 63 percent oppose the idea, and 21 percent are not sure.

One in five McDaniel supporters back secession.

It’s not altogether surprising that many McDaniel supporters are nostalgic for the Confederacy; throughout the campaign, the conservative state senator was forced to distance himself from neo-Confederates and white supremacists.

PPP is known for including provocative questions in its polls, which occasionally toe the line of trolling the respondents. In 2013, for example, the pollster found that racist celebrity chef Paula Deen had a higher favorability in Georgia than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Overall, PPP found that Senator Cochran is in good shape for the general election. He leads former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers, the Democratic nominee, by a 40 to 24 percent margin.

The PPP poll surveyed 501 Republican primary voters, all of whom said they voted in the runoff election. It has a +/- 3.7 percent margin of error.

H/t: Talking Points Memo

Photo: Stuart Seeger via Flickr

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WATCH: McDaniel Calls Mississippi Runoff ‘Most Unethical’ In History

WATCH: McDaniel Calls Mississippi Runoff ‘Most Unethical’ In History

Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel is still not over his narrow loss in the Republican primary runoff between himself and incumbent senator Thad Cochran (R-MS).

Since election night, McDaniel has refused to concede defeat, even though the state Republican Party has certified Cochran as the winner (by 7,667 votes, or 2 percent). Instead, McDaniel and allied Tea Party groups have accused the Cochran campaign of rigging the election through widespread fraud, charging that the incumbent “used leftist tactics to steal the runoff election by soliciting illegal votes from liberal Democrats.”

McDaniel’s accusations — which have yet to be backed by any legitimate evidence — reached their absurd, logical conclusion over the weekend, when the state senator claimed that the runoff was “clearly the most unethical election in the history of this state.”

“Let’s make it very clear today,” McDaniel said at a July 5 rally, as reported by BuzzFeed. “After what we saw the other night, which is clearly the most unethical election in the history of this state…and might…and might…very well be the most illegal election in the history of this state. We will let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike. The people of this state will do anything to preserve the torch of liberty. We will bear any burden, fight any foe, to make sure that corruption is finally rooted out of the election process in this state.”

As BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski points out, it’s hard to imagine that the runoff was less ethical than any Mississippi election between 1875 and 1964, when black Mississipians were denied the right to vote through a combination of discriminatory laws and violent terrorism. But then, it’s not particularly surprising that McDaniel — who spent much of his Senate campaign distancing himself from various white supremacists — isn’t well versed in civil rights history.

Although McDaniel refuses to give up on the Republican primary, the Cochran campaign has already shifted its focus to the general election against former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS). Cochran is a heavy favorite to return to Washington for a seventh term in the Senate.

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Poll Roundup: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback Is ‘Fighting For His Life’

Poll Roundup: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback Is ‘Fighting For His Life’

As the 2014 midterm elections draw closer, pollsters across the country will begin releasing masses of data and their predictions of who will control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and statehouses across the country. We’ll put those predictions in focus and provide a brief summary of key polls. Here’s our roundup from the week of June 22:

Kansas

Governor Sam Brownback (R) is “fighting for his life” against Democrat Paul Davis, according to SurveyUSA’s latest poll, released on Thursday. Davis leads Brownback by 6 points (47 percent to 41 percent), with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.

The poll shows that Davis has the support of 26 percent of Republicans, plus 89 percent of his Democratic base. Independents back Davis over Brownback by 19 points. Davis also leads among female voters by 14 points.

SurveyUSA notes that voters are primarily focused on education funding and taxes. Voters who prioritize education support Davis by 54 points, and those who prioritize tax rates favor Brownback by 16 percent. This reflects the divide over Brownback’s massive tax cuts, which drastically decreased funding for Kansas public education.

The Real Clear Politicspoll average shows the two candidates essentially tied, with Brownback ahead by only 0.3 points.

Brownback still has five months to attempt to retain voters, but that’s a lot of time for Davis, the lesser-known candidate, to make his case to voters and to make the race a referendum against Brownback’s policies.

Mississippi

After Senator Thad Cochran (R) resisted Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel’s challenge on Tuesday, he finds himself solidly ahead of his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers. A Rasmussen Reports poll has Cochran ahead of Childers by 12 points, with 46 percent supporting Cochran and 34 percent for Childers, and a margin of error of +/- 4 percent—10 percent of voters prefer another candidate, while 9 percent are still undecided.

Cochran owes his win on Tuesday to Mississippi Democrats. The Mississippi NAACP is now calling for Cochran to “reciprocate” by supporting reinstating the voting protections under the Voting Rights Act, which were struck down by the Supreme Court last year. Cochran supported the Supreme Court’s decision last year, and does not seem to have had a change of heart.

Many of the Democrats who supported Cochran on Tuesday will likely vote for Childers. But Mississippi is a very red state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1982.

Meanwhile, McDaniel is planning to challenge the results of the runoff — meaning that Cochran may not be in the clear quite yet.

Florida

The Florida gubernatorial race is at a dead tie. Incumbent Republican Rick Scott is ahead of former Republican governor Charlie Crist, who is now running as a Democrat, by only 1 point in the latest SurveyUSA poll. The poll, released on Wednesday, shows Scott with 42 percent of the vote and Crist with 41 percent, and has a +/- 4.3 percent margin of error.

There’s a 25-point gender gap between the candidates — Scott leads with male voters by 13 points and Crist carries women by 12 points.

Though Scott’s been trailing behind Crist in recent polls, he made up the ground in this poll due to a rise in senior support, which can make or break an election in Florida. Scott leads Crist among seniors by 13 points, while Crist is ahead in every other age group.

The two campaigns spent this week arguing over tax returns, and it’s looking like the months leading up to November will be chock full of negative attacks.

The Real Clear Politicspoll average shows Crist with a 2.2 percent lead, which is well within the margin of error.

Maine

Governor Paul LePage is another Republican incumbent struggling to stay in office. The latest Portland Press Heraldpoll has LePage tied with Democrat Mike Michaud. Michaud has a 4-point lead over LePage (40 percent to 36 percent), which is within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error.

Independent Mike Cutler has 15 percent of the vote, while 7 percent are undecided. The Press Herald says that many voters will wait to see whether Michaud or Cutler has a better chance of unseating the governor before deciding which candidate to vote for.

The Real Clear Politicspoll average shows that the candidates are tied, with Michaud ahead by only 0.7 percent.

Photo: IowaPolitics.com via Flickr

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