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The primary? that is the big question right now. that second senate seat will become vacant at the beginning of next month when thad cochran resignation becomes official. then it will be up to republican governor phil bryant to appoint a successor and now facing immense pressure within the state to head off the mcdaniel challenge by naming a strong conservative to the seat. perhaps it is bryant himself. we shall see. that is what mitch mcconnell would like. mcdaniel must figure that he has a better shot against a newly appointed republican than a long-term incumbent like wicker. and from his 2014 challenge toed that cochran he may have a point. the point is there watch that race now. we shall see. who does phil bryant appoint that he believes can beat mcdaniel in a primary? more mtp daily after this. rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it s proven to help relieve pain and protect joints ....
Fraud. so sam, what is your understanding of the state of the evidence as we sit here tonight? well, we know that there are, you know, 2,000 to 3,000 votes that are cross-over votes, we feel like probably statewide. the number that they keep saying of irregular votes has risen all the way up to 5,000, and then i ve heard reports today of as high as 6,000, 7,000. the attorney, mitch tynor, could not give us an exact number during the press conference. but to put it in perspective, these are what they re calling irregular votes so it doesn t mean they can be contested or they ll be illogical votes. they say 3,000 come out of heinz county, the largest county in the state. we ve been told by mcdaniel counters themselves of those 3,000, probably less than half would represent irregular votes that could actually be contested. so of whatever the final number is, you can be sure that it s ....
Ago, is pushing for another election in the state s republican senate primary. mcdaniel narrowly beat cochran on june 3rd but because he failed to reach 50% of the vote, a runoff was held three weeks later. with a higher turnout and the help of apparently some african-american democrats, cochran managed to beat mcdaniel by over 7,000 votes. cochran s margin of victory and his strategy to court liberals has mcdaniel pushing for a third election. a lawyer for the mcdaniel campaign said this we re looking to see how many ineligible voters voted in the runoff. we do not want to see any election decided by ineligible voters. in fact, as we ve gone through this process, we re surprised at the amount of evidence that continues to come forward that shows us that there has indeed been election fraud in this case. ....
And we do not want to see any election decided by ineligible voters. joining me now is msnbc political analyst e.j. dionne. from jackson, mississippi, sam hall, assistant managing editor of the clarion ledger. the campaign has offered a reward for any evidence of fraud, in their statement, we re offering $1,000 for evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in voter fraud on or leading up to june 24th, 2014. so sam, how much has that cost them so far over there in the mcdaniel campaign? well, they haven t paid out any rewards yet. they re actually offering up to 15 of those $1,000 rewards, using it as a fund-raise tier. they re asking each person to contribute $15 so they can fund those 15 $1,000 rewards if anybody does come forward with evidence that leads to the arrest and conviction of voter ....
Of this election other than with the mcdaniel people? are there any people who ended up going with cochran who are starting to kind of grumble, like maybe we shouldn t have done that? no, i haven t heard any of that. you know, i think most people are just kind of tired of the election in general. it s become quite the circus. we thought it was going to die down. we get crazy things that happen just about every day. so you wake and up wonder what s going to happen next. going back to what you were talking about, whether or not they re going to be able to come together on the republican side, melanie sojourner, state senator, mcdaniel s campaign manager, was on social media yesterday or saturday, i can t remember, one of the two, and basically said she did say she didn t see any way she could ever endorse or support thad cochran in the general election. i think those feelings are going to hang around at least for the core group. and whether or not that core group becomes active in ei ....