Mississippi Senate Primary Run-off

Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran’s national backers awakened to a wrenching decision Wednesday: whether to continue pouring energy and cash into an effort to rescue a six-term incumbent who failed to win a majority of the vote in this week’s primary.
The dilemma is agonizing on every level, forcing longtime Cochran allies who have already spent millions defending him to gauge how realistic the beloved senior senator’s chances are to win a June 24 runoff.

The hard-fought Mississippi Republican Senate primary is headed to a runoff between the six-term incumbent, Senator Thad Cochran, and his Tea Party-backed challenger, State Senator Chris McDaniel. Each received less than 50 percent of the vote in the achingly close first round of balloting on Tuesday.

With 100 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Cochran and Mr. McDaniel each had about 49 percent, with a third candidate pulling in less than 2 percent. Mr. McDaniel was leading by 1,386 votes out of the 310,000 cast.