Chris McDaniel
Christopher Brian McDaniel is an American attorney, talk radio host, and Republican Party politician who has served in the Mississippi State Senate since 2008. McDaniel was a candidate for United States Senate in 2014, but narrowly lost the Republican nomination to incumbent senator Thad Cochran in a runoff election.
On February 28, 2018, McDaniel announced his intention to campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against incumbent senator Roger Wicker. On March 14, 2018, McDaniel withdrew from challenging Wicker and declared his candidacy in the 2018 U.S. Senate special election after Cochran resigned. He failed to advance to the runoff, winning 16.4% of the vote.
Early life and education
McDaniel was born in Laurel, Mississippi. He is the only child of Carlos and Charlotte McDaniel. He graduated with honors from Jones County Junior College and received a B.S. with honors from William Carey University in 1994. He then entered the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduating cum laude in 1997 with a Juris Doctor degree. McDaniel resides with his family in Ellisville, Mississippi.Legal and radio career
In 1997, McDaniel entered a two-year federal clerkship with United States District Court Judge Charles W. Pickering. After leaving that position, he joined the law firm Hortman Harlow Bassi Robinson & McDaniel, becoming a partner in 2003. His areas of concentration include litigation, insurance defense, corporate law, products liability, commercial litigation, consumer products litigation, mass tort litigation, complex multi-party litigation, legislation, Constitutional law, and civil rights. He is licensed to practice law in Mississippi and Texas. In 2010, he was named one of the top 50 lawyers in Mississippi by the Mississippi Business Journal.McDaniel is the former host of The Right Side Radio Show on WMXI 98.1 FM in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, nationally syndicated since 2006 by EBN Radio Network and Golden Broadcasters. The show was broadcast nationwide on ABC Radio Networks and the industry standard Starguide III system. It returned to local stations after McDaniel left the show.
Political career
McDaniel is a Republican who has served in the Mississippi Senate since 2008.McDaniel was named 2010 Citizen of the Year by the Laurel Leader Call.
In 2012, McDaniel led a delegation to the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, for the dedication of a monument to the eight Mississippians who died when the fort was overrun in 1836.
2014 U.S. Senate campaign
In 2014, McDaniel ran for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Thad Cochran. He was vocal about his intention to repeal Obamacare if elected, and to work toward lowering the national debt. The primary was described as a contest between establishment Republicanism and anti-establishment Tea Party Republicanism. He was endorsed by the Club for Growth PAC and the Tea Party Express. In the June 3 Republican primary, McDaniel received 49.6% of the vote and Cochran 49.0%, forcing a June 24 runoff election. McDaniel lost the runoff, 49% to 51%.In the aftermath, the McDaniel campaign claimed there were indications of voter fraud, and that about 3,300 Democrats had voted for Cochran in the runoff. The campaign said it was investigating whether the crossover voting violated Mississippi law. On July 2, McDaniel wrote in a fundraising pitch, "Last week's runoff election was a sham, plain and simple," and charged that Cochran "stole" the nomination. A day after the election results were certified by the state party, Senator Ted Cruz and some Tea Party groups backed an investigation of voter fraud in the runoff election. Cruz also told reporters that groups aligned with the Cochran campaign had run racially charged ads designed to persuade black voters to vote against McDaniel. Regarding the ads, McDaniel said that the GOP is "a party that does not need to play the race card to win." On July 17, the Mississippi State Supreme Court rejected McDaniel's request for access to poll books without voters' birthdates blacked out, which his attorneys argued were needed to identify fraudulent votes. In August 2014, a Mississippi judge dismissed McDaniel's challenge. On October 24, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's dismissal in a 4–2 decision.
2018 U.S. Senate campaign
McDaniel originally declared that he would run against Senator Roger Wicker in the 2018 Republican primary. On March 5, 2018, Thad Cochran announced he would resign effective April 1, 2018, due to health concerns. Republican Governor Phil Bryant appointed Cindy Hyde-Smith to fill the vacancy created by Cochran's retirement. A nonpartisan blanket primary to fill the Senate vacancy for the remainder of Cochran's term was scheduled for November 6, 2018. These developments prompted McDaniel to cease his primary challenge to Wicker and instead run in the blanket primary, saying, "by announcing early, we are asking Mississippi Republicans to unite around my candidacy and avoid another contentious contest among GOP members that would only improve the Democrats’ chances of winning the open seat." He was the second candidate to enter the race. The first, Democrat Mike Espy, declared his candidacy shortly after Cochran announced his resignation. Hyde-Smith defeated McDaniel in the primary.Political positions
Eminent domain
As a first-term senator in 2010, McDaniel urged his fellow State Senators to override Governor Haley Barbour’s veto of eminent domain legislation that would prevent government from taking private land for use by private companies. The override effort failed by two votes, but began a grassroots ballot initiative to amend the Mississippi Constitution. The ballot initiative passed the following year.Healthcare
On April 9, 2010, McDaniel led a lawsuit seeking to have the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act deemed unconstitutional.LGBT rights and women
McDaniel has said of former Attorney General Janet Reno, "I'm not even sure Janet Reno was a woman". He has said that the Democratic Party is the party of "sex on demand, the party that supports the homosexual agenda." On January 22, 2017, McDaniel responded on Facebook to the 2017 Women's March by referring to marchers as "a bunch of unhappy liberal women" and stated that he opposes using federal funds to pay for birth control, abortion, and medicines for erectile dysfunction such as Viagra.Immigration
In 2007, McDaniel's immigration policy, as stated on his website, plagiarized text from a number of anti-immigration groups. McDaniel opposes a pathway to citizenship or temporary work permits for undocumented immigrants. He opposes increases in residency permits and work visas.Views on sexual assault
On September 17, 2018, McDaniel said on an American Family Radio show that sexual assault allegations "99 percent of the time are just absolutely fabricated." McDaniel made this claim in reference to allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.Southern secessionism and the Confederacy
In his 2018 Senate campaign, McDaniel's signature issue was a promise to preserve the flag of Mississippi, which bears the Confederate flag. The flag features on McDaniel's campaign materials. McDaniel has spoken at conferences held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In 2006 or 2007, he made statements on his talk show on reparations for slavery, race, and women that Politico, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and other news organizations characterized as controversial.On August 15, 2017, McDaniel claimed on his Twitter account that Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, was opposed to slavery. McDaniel later defended his views on Lee in a Facebook post that was discovered to have been plagiarized from Dinesh D'Souza.
The website for McDaniel's broadcast show "The Right Side Radio Show" listed League of the South as one of its favorite websites. The group is pro-Southern secessionist, describing itself as a "Southern Nationalist organization that seeks the survival, well-being, and independence of the Southern people." When asked about this in 2018, McDaniel's spokesperson said McDaniel "has never endorsed the League of the South and has nothing to do with them."