Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MI) has won his run-off, beating state Sen. Chris McDaniel. The six term Senator got second place in the Republican primary, but McDaniel failed to clear the 50% threshold, forcing the two into a run-off. The run-off got even more intense than the primary, with Cochran spending most of his time in the state (at one point, making news because he was unaware that Majority Leader Eric Cantor had been defeated in his own primary) and ramping up efforts to turn out the African-American vote. In Mississippi, African-Americans are mostly Democrats, but Mississippi has an open primary system. Although, the process of voting in the other parties’ primary does bring legal strings. A voter is not allowed to vote for the other party if they have no intention of supporting that candidate come November. Although, the sure way of being able to disqualify a voter for that reason is seemingly if they announce they intend to do just that. CNN’s Dana Bash did find some African-American Democrats who had voted for Cochran. Also, voters were not allowed to vote in the Republican run-off if they had voted in the Democratic primary. McDaniel had attacked Cochran’s strategy of reaching out to Democrats as desperate.
