Please come show your support for Senator Thad Cochran at the  this Thursday morning, July 31 at 10:30 a.m. when he speaks at the Founder’s Square Pavilion in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

As Thad launches the general election campaign at the Fair, this will be a great time to show how excited Mississippians are about this November’s election and the opportunity for a new Republican majority in the United States Senate.

Be sure to get there early to get a good seat for one of Mississippi’s greatest campaign traditions.

Jackson, MS – U.S. Senator Thad Cochran’s campaign released the following statement and updated county-by-county review numbers:

“An extensive review of 79 out of 82 counties has confirmed what we already knew: Senator Cochran clearly won the election,” said campaign spokesman Jordan Russell. “While there have been baseless accusations, the county-by-county review found very few votes that could be questioned and were due to routine clerical errors found in any election. It is time for Republicans to come together and focus on making sure this seat is part of a new Republican Senate majority.”

The updated totals show 909 votes that could be questioned out of over 382,000 votes cast statewide, which is less than 0.25% percent. Senator Cochran’s margin of victory was over 7,600 votes.

We have representatives at all 82 courthouses today to monitor the review of ballot boxes and have been pleased with the results.

The county by county results reported thus far are revealing an extremely low number of crossover votes from the June 24th election. As the process moves forward, the conversation is shifting from wild, baseless accusations to hard facts.

As we have said from the beginning, the run-off results are clear: the majority of Mississippians voted for Senator Thad Cochran. We appreciate the hard work by our Circuit Clerks and all those who have helped ensure the integrity of the Mississippi election system.

JACKSON, MS – GOP leaders from across Mississippi and the rest of the country are uniting behind Thad Cochran:


Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Joe Nosef:



“We congratulate Senator Cochran and his staff on his runoff victory tonight and also thank him for his constant, unwavering public service to our state when we<> needed help the most. We know he will continue to serve Mississippi in the same honorable and reliable manner in the coming years.”



Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX):


“I look forward to working with Thad and James Lankford, and remain committed to working hard to help Republicans win back the Senate so we can pass meaningful legislation to turn our nation around, to pull back from the fiscal and economic cliff we are facing, and to bring back jobs, growth, and freedom in America,” he said.



National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (R-KS):

“Congratulations to Thad Cochran on his hard-fought and well-deserved victory tonight in Mississippi.

“Thad Cochran has dedicated his life to serving the people of Mississippi and he will continue to fight diligently for them in the Senate. Thad lived up to his reputation as a statesman who always puts what is best for Mississippi and Mississippians first.

“I know that so many of my colleagues join me in looking forward to continue serving alongside Thad next year in a Republican majority.”

Issues affecting Mississippi stand at the center of this year’s campaigns for United States senator, and few would have predicted that federal spending for our state’s public schools, community colleges and universities would rise to passion and prominence.

The Republican primary, which has a June 24 runoff between incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel, has become a battleground over the role of $800 million in federal funds in Mississippi’s $3.2 billion K-12 education budget, as well as an additional $700 million spent on the state’s community colleges and universities.

We editorially criticized McDaniel’s statement opposing federal funding for education when it was reported in April, and Cochran supporters have appropriately, if belatedly, made it an issue in the runoff.

McDaniel has offered no way to replace that approximately $1.5 billion in federal funds coming into the state to support its education system at all levels. He has recklessly suggested that the state could absorb those drastic cuts without any serious impact.

The logical fall-back position to replace $800 million for K-12 education (which Sen. Cochran and others helped direct toward Mississippi in policy and legislative language) is by turning to the state and to local school districts for additional tax revenue – in other words, a local tax increase to make up for what is already ours but which McDaniel would reject.

Hard hit by the loss of the $800 million would be special education (think of the debate about special education funds during the 2014 session; under the McDaniel plan there would be virtually no funds to debate). Pre-K education like the Early Childhood Education Center in Tupelo would disappear. An as-yet uncalculated number of teaching positions would be eliminated.

Federal funds for Mississippi’s community colleges are roughly equal to what the state provides. How could that blow be absorbed?

Universities, it’s fair to say, would be devastated by the loss of $400 million in federal funds.

The Cochran campaign’s belated activist joining of the debate on the side of sensible education funding policy is gratifying. Many conservative voices in Mississippi’s business community have said for decades that strengthening public education is the only hope for raising Mississippi’s quality of life. McDaniel’s ill-conceived position represents a backward option. It shouts for a larger response from the state’s business community and leadership.

A better-educated population with improved job skills is our only conceivable way off the economic bottom. Cutting one-fourth of the money spent on K-12 schools in Mississippi and gutting community colleges and universities would be a disastrous course to perpetual mediocrity.

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