Conservatives, With Bannon's Help, Look for Revenge in Mississippi
By JEREMY W. PETERSOCT. 21, 2017
LAUREL, Miss. — In the recent history of Republican infighting, few losses have been more bitter than Chris McDaniel’s. Mr. McDaniel, a Mississippi state senator, still nurses the conviction that he was robbed of a seat in the United States Senate in 2014 by a Republican establishment that race-baited, covered up his opponent’s affair and encouraged Democrats to raid the primary.
The slogan “Remember Mississippi” has become shorthand around here for the unshakable belief among conservative activists that Senator Thad Cochran occupies a stolen seat.
Now, from his law office in the pine belt of southern Mississippi, Mr. McDaniel is plotting his revenge. This time, he has a powerful new ally, Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, who is hoping to make Mississippi the next domino to fall in an insurgency that would remake the Senate — and the Republican Party.
If Mr. McDaniel runs, as expected, he will face Senator Roger Wicker in a primary in June — the first election next year in which Republican Senate candidates would square off. The race could offer an early answer to a question that is vital to the party’s future: Does the effort to replace sitting Republicans with populist conservatives in the mold of Mr. Trump have a credible chance of maturing into a national movement? Its backers are already plotting a course across the South and then westward to states like Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. In all of those states, the insurgents have a rallying cry in Mr. Trump’s name and a villain in the Washington’s Republican leadership, especially in the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/us/politics/mcdaniel-wicker-mississippi-senate-race-bannon.html