By Caitlin Huey-Burns - June 4, 2014

One of the closest and most dramatic Senate races in the country took another turn Tuesday. Conservative insurgent Chris McDaniel narrowly defeated Thad Cochran in Mississippi but failed to top the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff.

With 49.6 percent of the vote to Cochran’s 48.9 percent, McDaniel and the six-term lawmaker will lsquare off again in three weeks.

If the order of finish holds, Cochran will be the first incumbent senator to lose a re-election bid this cycle.

“This is a historic moment in this state’s history,” McDaniel told supporters at his election night rally, but added, “Our fight is not over. … Whether it’s tomorrow or three weeks from now, we will stand victorious in this race.” Cochran did not address supporters at the end of the night.

An extended campaign and likely low turnout on June 24 could help McDaniel, a 41-year-old state senator and attorney who rebounded in the final days of the race when a peculiar blogger scandal threatened to trip up his campaign.

The question now is whether establishment-aligned groups, donors, and operatives will work overtime on Cochran’s behalf. Both candidates are running low on cash and would need financial support. Outside groups spent roughly $8 million on this race, $5 million of which was directed at unseating Cochran.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee remained on the incumbent’s side. "We will expect a vigorous debate about the future of our country over the next three weeks and we will continue to fully support Thad Cochran,” Executive Director Rob Collins said.

Henry Barbour, who runs a pro-Cochran super PAC, also pledged to continue efforts for Cochran. "MS Senate run-off will decide if MS will have Thad representing MS interests or McDaniel beholden to his out-of-state funders,” tweeted Barbour, the nephew of former Gov. Haley Barbour.



McDaniel waged a campaign against his opponent’s entrenchment in Washington and advocated for a more conservative Republican Party than the one with which Cochran has identified.

A 36-year veteran of the Senate, Cochran campaigned on his experience and seniority in Washington as tangible assets -- not liabilities. In an age when many incumbents have heeded early warning signs and recalibrated their campaigns to woo the GOP’s more fiscally conservative factions, Cochran didn’t.

Instead, he touted the money and resources he secured from the agriculture and appropriations panels for his poor and occasionally disaster-ravished state, and campaigned in front of federally funded projects. And aside from remarks on the trail about the need to repeal the health care law, he didn’t cozy up to the Tea Party -- even telling a local news station earlier this year he didn’t know much about the movement.

While Cochran campaigned on incumbency, McDaniel bet his candidacy on voter dissatisfaction with Washington and government spending, and sold himself as someone who would fight more fiercely than Cochran against the health care law, illegal immigration, and gun laws, among other issues. Endorsed by Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and aligned groups, McDaniel push a brand of conservatism disinclined to compromise in the Senate. An attorney, he had also vowed to push for a constitutional amendment instituting term limits on members of Congress.

The 76-year-old Cochran, who was the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi since Reconstruction, appeared ripe for defeat in a political climate that favored his challenger. This, and the fact that he entered the campaign with only $800,000 in his coffers, led to speculation that he might retire. (He recently told the Washington Post: “I thought it was time … but people were saying, ‘What are we going to do without you?’”

But the race took on interesting twists and Cochran’s vulnerabilities prompted the state’s savvy political establishment to help out: Haley Barbour and his nephews divided their time and energy between advising the incumbent’s campaign and running the super PAC in support of him.

The race was also colored by local drama that drew national attention. Four of McDaniel’s supporters were arrested in connection with posting video online of Cochran’s ailing wife, who has long suffered from dementia, in her nursing home. (The images were apparently intended to contrast her with the senator’s longtime aide, rumored to be a love interest.) McDaniel denied any connection to the incident and there was no evidence to suggest he was. But Cochran’s campaign used it to the incumbent’s advantage by running ads blasting McDaniel as a dirty politician. The challenger then returned fire, charging his opponent with playing politics of his own by trying to connect McDaniel to the scandal.

McDaniel rebounded in the final days, though, as polls heading into Election Day put the race at a dead heat. Palin and Santorum came to Mississippi over the weekend to host rallies on McDaniel’s behalf, urging voters to send a message to Washington.