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Wicker Gets a Primary Challenge

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Chris McDaniel (R) is expected to announce later this week that he will wage a 2018 primary challenge against Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Politico reports.

“McDaniel’s plans have been the subject of speculation for months. With the 80-year-old Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) health in decline, many believed that McDaniel would run for the seat should it become vacant.”

McDaniel Mulls Challenging Wicker

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Playbook: “Chris McDaniel (R), the GOP state senator who challenged Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in 2014, told us that he has had several conversations with Steve Bannon about his political future over the last month, including meetings at Breitbart’s headquarters on Capitol Hill… McDaniel has been toying with primarying Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).”

McDaniel said Bannon told him he would “love to see me enter the U.S. Senate race, and that he’ll support me in whatever race I would run.”


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Failed Senate Primary Challengers Rally Around Cruz

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Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) presidential campaign “may not get many endorsements from Senate colleagues. Not coincidentally, the Texas senator is racking up support from primary challengers who tried but failed to unseat some of those senators last year. Tennessee’s Joe Carr, Mississippi’s Chris McDaniel, and South Carolina’s Lee Bright, three conservatives who opposed longtime GOP senators in 2014 primaries, have all backed Cruz for president,” National Journal reports.

“It’s a small part of Cruz’s effort to do next year what those candidates did last year: serve as a vessel for conservative voters’ frustration with the political establishment.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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