After a long and bitter fight, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi will manage to fend off a serious tea party challenge in Tuesday’s GOP Senate runoff, CNN reports, and move closer to a seventh term.
With 99% of the precincts counted, Cochran held a 51%-49% lead over state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who forced Cochran into the runoff after both candidates fell just short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a longer contest. In the primary, McDaniel edged out Cochran by less than 1,500 votes.
In a bizarre twist, it might be Democrats that helped push Cochran ahead at the finish line. Along with Mississippi and New York, six other states held contests Tuesday.
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Cochran did something few Republicans have done in recent years: Actively solicit the votes of African Americans. Cochran was able to do this successfully because he is not a racist, and because his opponent McDaniel has a long history of racially insensitive comments. Cochran succeeded the notorious racist James Eastland in the US Senate back in 1978 and has never engaged in race baiting.
Unfortunately, the trend in the Republican Party is in the other direction. Louisiana Gov. Jindal openly embraced Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson who publicly lamented the end of Jim Crow, which in Louisiana was more brutal than in most of the rest of the South. A host of western Republican legislators embraced welfare queen rancher Cliven Bundy even as he was spouting racist garbage and threatening government officials. And the nativist bigotry of people like Rep. Steve King is now mainstream in that party. Hopefully Cochran’s success will signal a return to the roots of the Party of Lincoln.