Rogelio V. Solis
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some black Mississippians who usually vote Democratic tried to swing a primary victory toward six-term Republican incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran by casting ballots in their state’s GOP primary.
Their support in Tuesday’s election couldn’t get Cochran out of a runoff with tea party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel. But without it, Cochran may not have garnered enough votes to survive to a runoff.
No one knows exactly how many black Democrats or independents crossed party lines to vote in the Republican primary. Mississippi’s primary system is open, meaning voters of any party could participate. But it was clear that some did for various reasons.
Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs, a black Democrat who served 26 years in the state House of Representatives before winning the city office in 2013, said Tuesday he voted for Cochran because “Thad’s been good for Mississippi,” and helped to bring a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ research station to his city.
“I’m one of those persons who always puts the best person ahead of politics,” Flaggs said.
The likelihood of a Republican victory in the general election — the last Democratic Mississippi senator was John Stennis in 1989 — means that black voters would have more influence by voting in the GOP primary, said D’Andra Orey, a political science professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.
