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Tea Party hopeful Chris McDaniel lost his Republican primary challenge to six-term Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi on June 24. Cochran beat him by about 7,700 votes. On July 7, the state's Republican Party certified Cochran's victory.

Six weeks after the run-off election, McDaniel is having a tough time moving on.

On Monday, McDaniel, a state senator, announced he was formally challenging the results and asking the Mississippi Republican executive committee to declare him the party's nominee in the November general election.

"Justice has no timetable, and yet here we stand," McDaniel, 42, told reporters assembled at a press conference outside his headquarters in Jackson that was somewhat ominously interrupted by thunderclaps and a downpour. "They asked us to put up or shut up, and yet here are. Here we are with the evidence."

Since shortly after the run-off, McDaniel and his team have alleged that Cochran and his "race-baiting" allies stole the election by turning out Democrats who voted illegally in both the Democratic primary and the Republican run-off. The Cochran campaign did appeal to the largely Democratic population of African American voters in the state who were eligible to vote in the G.O.P. run-off if they had not earlier voted in their own party's primary.