Failed Mississippi Senate candidate Chris McDaniel confirmed Monday that he would challenge the results of June's runoff Republican primary in which he lost to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran. And rather than call for a new election to address allegations of voter fraud, the state senator said he was instead asking the state GOP to simply declare him the winner.
McDaniel, who placed first in the initial round of voting but failed to win outright, has claimed since his defeat that the Cochran camp abetted election fraud and engaged in race baiting by urging black Democrats to back the senator. A fundraising pitch on McDaniel's website accuses Cochran and Democrats of rigging a "stolen election."
A lawyer for the McDaniel camp said Monday that they had identified 15,000 ballots that they believed should be tossed out, as well as thousands of other irregularities. All told, team McDaniel said it believed their candidate won by 25,000 votes. The official tally put Cochran up by about 7,000 votes.