Chris McDaniel Biography
Chris McDaniel is an American attorney, talk radio host, and Republican Party politician who has served in the Mississippi State Senate since 2008.
He was a candidate for United States Senate in 2014, but narrowly lost the Republican nomination to incumbent senator Thad Cochran in a runoff election.
McDaniel in February 28, 2018 announced his intention to campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against incumbent senator Roger Wicker. McDaniel on March 14, 2018 withdrew from challenging Wicker and declared his candidacy in the 2018 U.S. Senate special election necessitated by Cochran’s resignation. McDaniel failed to advance to the runoff, winning 16.4% of the vote.
Chris McDaniel Age
McDaniel was born on June 28, 1971. He is aged 48 years as of 2019.
Chris McDaniel Net Worth
Chris has a net worth of 7.3 million US dollars.
Chris McDaniel Personal Life
McDaniel is married to Jill Tullos McDaniel, who was the 1995 Miss Mississippi USA. They have two children. McDaniel is a Southern Baptist.
Chris McDaniel Early Life and Education
He was born in Laurel, Mississippi. McDaniel is the only child of Carlos and Charlotte McDaniel. McDaniel graduated with honors from Jones County Junior College and received a B.S. with honors from William Carey University in 1994. Afterwards entered the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduating cum laude in 1997 with a Juris Doctor degree. He resides with his family in Ellisville, Mississippi.
He is the grandson of early country singer Luke McDaniel.
Chris McDaniel Career
Legal and radio career
McDaniel entered a two-year federal clerkship with United States District Court Judge Charles W. Pickering in 1997. After leaving that position, he joined the law firm Hortman Harlow Bassi Robinson & McDaniel, becoming a partner in 2003. McDaniel 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. He was named one of the top 50 lawyers in Mississippi by the Mississippi Business Journal in 2010. He 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 Star guide III system. It returned to local stations after McDaniel left the show.
Chris McDaniel Political career
He is a Republican who has served in the Mississippi Senate since 2008. He was named 2010 Citizen of the Year by the Laurel Leader Call. McDaniel in 2012 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
United States Senate Republican primary election in Mississippi, 2014
McDaniel in 2014 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. McDaniel was endorsed by the Club for Growth PAC and the Tea Party Express.
In Republican primary in the June 3, McDaniel received 49.6% of the vote and Cochran 49.0%, forcing a June 24 runoff election. He 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.
Chris McDaniel on July 2 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.” The Mississippi State Supreme Court on July 17 rejected McDaniel’s request for access to poll books without voters’ birth dates blacked out, which his attorneys argued were needed to identify fraudulent votes. A Mississippi judge dismissed McDaniel’s challenge on August 2014. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s dismissal in a 4–2 decision on October 24.
2018 U.S. Senate campaign
Main article: United States Senate special election in Mississippi, 2018
He originally declared that he would run against Senator Roger Wicker in the 2018 Republican primary. Thad Cochran in March 5, 2018 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 non-partisan blanket primary to fill the Senate vacancy for the remainder of Cochran’s term was scheduled for November 6, 2018.
The 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.” McDaniel was the second candidate to enter the race.
The first, Democrat Mike Espy, declared his candidacy shortly after Cochran announced his resignation. He faced Hyde-Smith in the primary.
Chris McDaniel 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
McDaniel on April 9, 2010 led a lawsuit seeking to have the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) deemed unconstitutional.
LGBT rights and women
He has said of former Attorney General Janet Reno, “I’m not even sure Janet Reno was a woman”. McDaniel has said that the Democratic Party is the party of “sex on demand, the party that supports the homosexual agenda.” McDaniel on January 22, 2017 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
McDaniel’s immigration policy, as stated on his website on 2007, plagiarized text from a number of anti-immigration groups. He opposes a pathway to citizenship or temporary work permits for undocumented immigrants. McDaniel opposes increases in residency permits and work visas.
Views on sexual assault
McDaniel on September 17, 2018 said on an American Family Radio show that sexual assault allegations “99 percent of the time are just absolutely fabricated.” He 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. He has spoken at conferences held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He made statements on 2006 or 2007 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.
Chris McDaniel on August 15, 2017 claimed on his Twitter account that Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, was opposed to slavery. (Lee accepted “the extinction of slavery” provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but believed slavery was good for black people, publicly opposed racial equality, and opposed granting African Americans the right to vote and other political rights.) He 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.”
Chris McDaniel Twitter
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