MS-LG: Neo-Confederate fanboy aims to win one of Mississippi's top offices
Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a longtime ally of neo-Confederate groups who almost ousted the late Sen. Thad Cochran in the 2014 Republican primary, announced Monday that he’d challenge Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in this year’s nomination contest for one of the most powerful offices in this red state.
McDaniel, who entered the race just two days before candidate filing closed, asked his audience, “Do you want a Trump or DeSantis, or do you want a Mitt Romney or a Liz Cheney?” The state senator argued he was trying to beat Hosemann in the Aug. 8 primary by casting the incumbent, who leads the state Senate, as a moderate whose “beliefs align more with the Democratic Party than they do with the party of Reagan and Goldwater.”
Among other things, McDaniel faulted Hosemann for appointing his Democratic colleagues as committee chairs, supporting a Medicaid expansion for postpartum mothers, and telling Trump’s bogus “election integrity” panel to “go jump in the Gulf” back in 2017. “There is no honor in compromise,” he declared, “There is only weakness in surrender.” Hosemann’s team responded to the challenge by defending his conservative credentials and blasting McDaniel as “the least effective politician in the state with the largest ego.”
Two little-known candidates also are competing for the GOP nod, and their presence could prevent either Hosemann or McDaniel from winning the majority of the vote they’d need to avoid a runoff on Aug. 29. Governors and lieutenant governors compete in separate elections, and whoever wins this primary will be the favorite against Ryan Grover, a graphic designer who was the one Democrat to file, to take what’s arguably the most influential job in Mississippi politics.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/2/2150754/-Neo-Confederate-fanboy-aims-to-win-one-of-Mississippi-s-top-offices-9-years-after-shock-Senate-loss
