McDaniel To Formally Challenge Election Results

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A tea party-backed candidate is formally challenging his loss to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in the Mississippi Republican primary.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel announced on his website Monday that he had filed a challenge with the Mississippi GOP state executive committee over Cochran’s June 24 runoff victory.

McDaniel will have to prove there were enough illegally cast votes to change the outcome or the election was so sloppily handled its result is in doubt.

McDaniel has called the runoff a sham and excoriated Cochran for seeking votes from Democrats. Mississippi voters don’t register by party, but it is against state law to vote in one party’s primary and another party’s runoff in the same cycle.

Certified results show Cochran won by 7,667 votes, or 51 percent.