page_title: 2014 United States Senate elections
section_title: Mississippi
hierarchical_section_title: 2014 United States Senate elections / Mississippi
caption_attribution_description: I'm looking forward to seeing Travis Childers in Washington soon as Senator Travis Childers.
context_page_description: The 2014 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2014. A total of 36 seats in the 100-member U.S. Senate were contested. Thirty-three Class 2 seats were contested for regular six-year terms to be served from January 3, 2015 to January 3, 2021, and three Class 3 seats were contested in special elections due to Senate vacancies. The elections marked 100 years of direct elections of U.S. Senators. Going into the elections, 21 of the contested seats were held by the Democratic Party, while 15 were held by the Republican Party.
  The Republicans regained the majority of the Senate in the 114th Congress, which started in January 2015; the Republicans had not controlled the Senate since January 2007. They had needed a net gain of at least six seats to obtain a majority. They held all of their seats and gained nine Democratic-held seats. Republicans defeated five Democratic incumbents: Mark Begich of Alaska lost to Dan Sullivan, Mark Pryor of Arkansas lost to Tom Cotton, Mark Udall of Colorado lost to Cory Gardner, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana lost to Bill Cassidy and Kay Hagan of North Carolina lost to Thom Tillis.
context_section_description: Six-term incumbent Republican Thad Cochran, re-elected with 62% of the vote in 2008, is running for re-election. Cochran was the last incumbent Senator to declare his plans, leading to widespread speculation that he might announce his retirement.Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel, a conservative Mississippi state senator, ran against Cochran in the Republican primary. Neither McDaniel nor Cochran was able to get 50% of the vote in the first round of the primary, so a runoff election was held June 24. Cochran won the runoff election by 51% to 49%, with the help of Democratic voters eligible to vote in the state's open primaries who chose Cochran as their preferred Republican. McDaniel filed a lawsuit to challenge the results of the run-off, but the challenge was rejected on appeal by the Supreme Court of Mississippi.
  Former Congressman Travis Childers was the Democratic nominee.
caption: Childers campaigning for Senate
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