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Cochran won the 2014 Republican primary against [[conservative]] [[Tea Party movement]] challenger and state Senator [[Chris McDaniel]], albeit with the use of ethically questionable yet legal tactics. In the [[primary]], McDaniel led with 49.5 percent but fell short of a majority. Cochran courted influential [[African-American]] [[Democratic Party|Democrats]] to vote in the open runoff election. Using questionable tactics, Cochran won a majority in the expanded electorate with African American Democrats. Cochran then prevailed in the 2014 general election.
After Cochran's resignation, Chris McDaniel entered the special election to pick a successor, but the interim appoint from [[Governor]] Phil Bryant]] went to former Democrat [[Cindy Hyde-Smith]]. McDaniel and Hyde-Smith now face the popular African-American Democrat Mike Espy in the November 6 contest.
==Early life==
Thad Cochran was born in Pontotoc, near Tupelo in northern Mississippi. His father, William Holmes Cochran, was the principal and his mother, Emma Grace Cochran, a teacher in schools in Pontotoc, Tippah, and Hinds counties. Cochran, an [[Eagle Scout]] in his youth, was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award as an adult. He graduated from Byram High School near the capital city of [[Jackson]] and received in 1959 a B.A. degree from the [[University of Mississippi]] at Oxford with a major in psychology and a minor in [[political science]]. Cochran switched to Republican affiliation in the 1960s and went on to serve as Mississippi executive director of [[Richard M. Nixon]]'s 1968 presidential campaign, which fared poorly in Mississippi, losing to [[Alabama]] former Governor [[George Wallace]], running on the American Independent Party label.
==Political career==
