JACKSON, Miss. -- Forced into a Mississippi runoff, U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran and challenger Chris McDaniel plunged into a three-week campaign Wednesday to pick a Republican candidate for the fall and settle the Tea Party's best chance of the year to topple a pillar of the establishment.
McDaniel, a narrow leader in the vote tally, spent the day resting with his family and "gearing up for what will hopefully be three more weeks of vigorous debate on the important issues facing Mississippians," spokesman Noel Fritsch said.
Cochran, seeking a seventh term, skipped votes in the Senate during the day. He and his allies sought to put the best face on a relatively weak showing at the ballot box after three decades in office spent directing federal funds to his economically distressed state.
"We had a great day yesterday, and it is one more step toward making November Mississippi's moment when we take back the U.S. Senate," Cochran said in a written statement.
Asked about Cochran's prospects, fellow Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker paused at length before responding to reporters, "What do you think?" He then predicted Cochran's victory in the runoff and said he would give the party its best chance to "hold the seat for a Republican majority."
The third candidate in the race, real estate agent Tom Carey, said he had a preference between Cochran and McDaniel but declined to disclose it.
"The two candidates need to talk about issues instead of the backbiting and backstabbing that they've done," Carey said.
Results from 99 percent of the state's precincts showed McDaniel with 155,040 votes, or 49.5 percent. Cochran had 153,654, or 49 percent. Carey had 4,789 votes, or 1.5 percent, a sliver of support but enough to prevent either of the two better-funded rivals from reaching the needed majority.
The count was slowed by a few thousand mailed-in ballots as well as provisional ballots cast by voters who lacked identification. They have five days to provide identification and validate their votes. Beyond that, officials have until June 13 to complete their canvass of the vote. If they take that long, that would leave only 10 days before the runoff election.
Further complicating the race, the state has no provision for an automatic recount even in a race as close as this one, and either side presumably could go to court.
The Tea Party sees the race -- the closest of the primary season -- as its best chance to thwart the GOP establishment. It failed earlier in the year to topple incumbents or other establishment favorites in Texas, Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina.
Meanwhile, a Republican official said the Central Mississippi Tea Party president became trapped in a county courthouse in the middle of the night, hours after officials had stopped counting votes in the race.
Janis Lane has been campaigning for months for McDaniel. Hinds County Republican Executive Committee Chairman Pete Perry, who's supporting Cochran, said Lane called him at 2 a.m. Wednesday, saying she and a friend were locked inside the courthouse and needed help getting out.
Perry said Lane, who is on the GOP county committee, told him she and her friend had gone to the courthouse a few minutes earlier to see how the election process works, entering through an unsecured back basement door that locked behind them.
Lane did not return calls for comment Wednesday.
Perry said he called the Hinds County sheriff's office, and a deputy sent someone to let Lane and her friend out of the locked building.
The sheriff's office is interviewing people about what happened, spokesman Othor Cain said Wednesday. He said ballots and voting machines were locked up when Lane and her friend were alone in the courthouse, and an initial investigation showed nothing appeared to have been altered.
Information for this article was contributed by Donna Cassata and Philip Elliott of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/05/2014