HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Voters took to the polls here Tuesday to settle one of the most expensive and nasty primary campaigns of the year, as Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) banked heavily on his seniority in Washington to help him beat back an insurgent conservative challenge from state Sen. Chris McDaniel.
Backed by the money and manpower of the tea party movement, McDaniel tried to channel the anti-establishment fervor of Mississippi Republican activists to defeat a 36-year veteran of the Senate. Cochran, meanwhile, has been highlighting his years of largess for his poor state and labored to turn out black Democrats to vote and give him an edge.
With their campaigns bracing for a close finish, both men sounded confident on Tuesday. “I think we’re going to win,” Cochran told a breakfast crowd in Ocean Springs, while McDaniel said after voting in his hometown of Ellisville, “We’re feeling great.”
National Republicans are watching the Mississippi race nervously, fearing McDaniel’s far-right positions and history of insensitive comments on matters of gender and race could give Democrat Travis Childers an advantage in this solidly Republican state and weigh down GOP candidates elsewhere.
The Mississippi Senate contest is the marquee race on this crowded June primary day, but elections are taking place in six other states as well.
In New York, another long-serving lawmaker, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D), sought to fend off a younger challenger, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, in a bitter rematch of their close 2012 primary. First elected in 1970, Rangel is one of the most powerful African Americans on Capitol Hill, but he is struggling to hold his seat following a 2010 censure for ethics violations and demographic changes in his Harlem-based district.
In Oklahoma, one of the most conservative states, the Republican Senate primary could produce a new GOP star. State House Speaker T.W. Shannon, who is black and a member of the Chickasaw Nation, faced Rep. James Lankford, who is white and a member of the House leadership, to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R).
Republicans in Colorado will pick a nominee to challenge Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) this fall. Former congressman Tom Tancredo, a vocal anti-immigration activist, and former congressman Bob Beauprez, the establishment favorite, led a field of candidates.
And in Maryland, a bruising Democratic primary to succeed Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) came to a close in the contest between Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Doug Gansler and state Del. Heather Mizeur.
But many politicos were most focused on Mississippi, where Cochran, 76, and McDaniel, 41, have been locked in an increasingly vicious and bizarre internecine fight. In the June 3 primary election, McDaniel edged Cochran, but finished just shy of the 50-percent threshold, forcing the two men into Tuesday’s runoff.
The winner will face Childers, a relatively centrist former Democratic congressman who holds antiabortion views and voted against the Affordable Care Act.
As he visited with voters on Tuesday, Cochran resisted personally criticizing McDaniel. He instead delivered platitudes in a hoarse, sometimes barely audible voice, his rail-thin, dark-suited frame moving slowly. As state Rep. Brad Mayo (R) put it, Cochran’s style has “always been to use honey over vinegar.”
Cochran spent the morning campaigning along the Gulf Coast, an area dominated by military bases and neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Katrina — both core themes of Cochran’s closing argument highlighting the federal funds he has steered to Mississippi over the years.
Reaching out to black Democrats has been central to Cochran’s playbook in the closing days, with pamphlets, phone calls and field staffers canvassing majority-black communities in south Jackson and elsewhere. Cochran hopes blacks cross party lines to reelect a moderate Republican over McDaniel, a hard-charging fiscal hawk.
In Mississippi, which does not register by party affiliation, any registered voter can vote in the Republican runoff election as long they did not vote in the Democratic primary during the first round of balloting on June 3.
“We’ve spent a lot of time bringing a conservative message to black voters, as well as to white voters, the old and young, men and women,” said Austin Barbour who, along with Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, is advising Cochran. “They care about jobs, education, and infrastructure — issues where Senator Cochran has an exemplary record.”
At Cochran’s satellite office in Hattiesburg, Stacy Ahua, 25, a black field organizer, managed a get-out-the-vote operation. She put out a box of Shipley doughnuts and distributed signs to a group of elderly Cochran backers.
“We’re all a little anxious, our senses heightened,” she said. “Some of our people forgot to come out for that first vote and we’ve really tried to get things moving. I think everybody now understands the stakes, whether you’re Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Baptist.”
In response, the Senate Conservatives Fund, led by former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli (R), and other groups sent operatives to monitor the trickle of voters in Democratic areas. McDaniel staffers also were seen throughout Mississippi on Tuesday morning, notepads in hand, taking notes.
Jacob Creel, 20, a Marine reservist, was one of those poll-watchers, sitting inside a senior center and stepping out from time to time to make calls to his higher-ups about the kinds of voters coming by.
“Nothing crazy has happened yet, even with all of the national attention,” Creel said as he paced near the parking lot. “But we’ll be on the lookout all day to see if anything fishy happens.”
This has caused unease in Mississippi, a state with a long and ugly history of racial unrest. NAACP leaders, wary of potential confrontations, sent their own monitors to Mississippi. Justice Department officials were also receiving updates about voting activity.
McDaniel’s closing argument has centered not on Cochran’s voting record, but on his political temperament. McDaniel frequently wondering aloud why Cochran shows “reluctance to engage Barack Obama.” He said he would, promising to work alongside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and other tea party firebrands.
In the Pine Belt, a deeply conservative stretch of southeast Mississippi, frustration and fury with Cochran were evident. Lines of McDaniel signs dotted the highways and small roads connecting Chick-fil-A restaurants, pawn shops and gas stations.
Outside a polling station near Hattiesburg High School, Birgil McLauren said with a heavy sigh that Cochran “hasn’t done a damn thing for 42 years, and six more years won’t make a difference.”
“I’m sick about hearing that he’s done so much,” said McLauren, 76. “If he’s done so much, why are we still the poorest state?”
Cochran will spend the evening in Jackson, hosting supporters at the Mississippi Children’s Museum, which he has long supported with federal dollars and requested earmarks for in recent years. McDaniel will await returns with supporters in Hattiesburg.
The Mississippi race gained national attention this spring when McDaniel supporters were arrested in connection with taking an illicit photo of Cochran’s bedridden wife, Rose, who has dementia and lives in a nursing home.
The media attention has annoyed Cochran, whose campaigns have been relatively sleepy affairs since he first won his seat in 1978. Cochran told onlookers in recent days that he didn’t like his large tan-and-black campaign bus, calling it unseemly.
A bevy of GOP establishment groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, backed Cochran. On Monday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the party’s most prominent foreign-policy hawks, campaigned for Cochran, a fellow Naval veteran. And popular former quarterback Brett Favre, a Mississippi native, appeared in an ad.
McDaniel, meanwhile, has drawn support from national tea party groups as well as conservative stars, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Chuck Woolery, a former “Wheel of Fortune” host.
At Jean’s Restaurant in Meridian on Monday, McDaniel compared his bid to that of David Brat, the Virginia Republican who beat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in a primary this month, calling his campaign an extension of the grassroots fervor behind Brat.
“People are ready for change in Washington,” McDaniel said. “Virginia was good evidence of that and we’re going to make Mississippi the center of the nation tomorrow.”
Rucker reported from Washington.
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