democrats, what he meant was african-americans. and we do know from the turnout that african-american turnout was astronomical. over 40% in a predominantly african-american counties. so that approach, by the cochran campaign to look at this runoff as an opportunity to expand the map, with a massive get out the vote effort and go beyond playing the debates, which has been the mantra in republican primaries for so long, and instead try to expand the map, that proved successful. he was able to take advantage of the fact that mississippi doesn t have voter registration. and appeal to folks like african-americans who are not traditionally republican voters. but they wanted to stop chris mcdaniel and succeeded in doing so. we know this, the republican party is challenged when it comes to attracting black voters. what i really want to know, what was this runoff strictly some kind of odd anomaly, or do you have just imagine thad cochran s cell phone ringing off the hook with republican str
there is something a bit unusual about a republican primary that s decided by labor ral democrats. liberal democrats. if he sounds like the loser, well, he is. the tea party s chris mcdaniel, he has yet to concede, but he is the loser of this epic runoff race that s the nearly deposed mississippi s thad cochran, 36 years in the u.s. senate. and in case you hadn t noticed, another tea party story. fire brand emerges from out of nowhere and either beats a republican heavyweight or runs close enough to give him panic attacks. you know the refrain. but this one has a twist. back to the wall, thad contact cochran, a commercial didn t hurt whatsoever but the hail mary was an appeal to black
voters. democrats. to come vote for him in a republican runoff. in mississippi, that is legal, are and it worked for thad cochran. take a listen. who did you vote for? thad cochran. reporter: did you vote in the actual primary? no, i did not. reporter: so why did you come and vote in the runoff? because i feel like the man can do the job for us here. reporter: who did you vote for? senator cochran. reporter: did you vote in the june 3rd primary? i did not. reporter: dana bash in mississippi. let s hit pause and talk to john avlon, editor in chief, super duper smart guy. we can talk all we want about irony here. but let s just begin with sheer numbers. the real question is, did these liberal democrats, as chris mcdaniel calls them, did these liberal democrats win that republican runoff for thad cochran? reporter: well, brooke, you know, when mcdaniel said liberal
reporter: the cochran campaign does show an alternate path to victory, the alternative simply doubling down on the base, trying to just, you know, get low turnout and appeal to enough white folks to get past the finish line. it worked. the republican party needs to deal with depth graphic change. they have had a problem doing that. rand paul is constantly challenging to reach beyond the base, to reach out to african-americans. and hispanics. the cochran campaign is one of the first to do it. in a primary. which the degree of difficulty is much higher. it is it show an alternate path to victory, a different way to fight in the gop civil war. and it could, if someone is inspired, inspire some folks in the republican party to think beyond the base and try to figure out how to practice the politics of addition, not just the politics of division, which they have done for basically the past decade. john avlon, i want to ask you something out of left field here. on thad cochran. when
years in the senate. you have new york s charlie rangel, democrat, age 84. do you see where i m going here? he appears to have won his primary. 84-year-old, and a 76-year-old, listen, that s tons of experience. little farther than some of those voters, speaking of expanding the map that want the youth vote. these two maybe not entirely hip to the twitters. to you see anything interesting in that. reporter: i think it s really tempting to draw a direct line between cochran and rangel last night. of i don t think there is much. here is where tip o neill gets his revenge, all politics local. one thing that did matter in both races is that heritage of public service and the high name i.d. that made the mistake for alternative than their challengers. and i do think it s important to recognize, that increased turnout wasn t necessarily pro thad cochran as folks would have liked bringing home the bacon in mississippi. it just as intensely anti