The head of tea party group said Wednesday that state Sen. Chris McDaniel should wage a write-in campaign in the November election after losing to Sen. Thad Cochran in a nasty Mississippi primary race.

Judson Phillips, the vocal leader of Tea Party Nation, an online group that backed Mr. McDaniel in the race, said that Mr. Cochran and his allies made it abundantly clear in the contest that the “RINO wing” of the Republican party will do whatever it can to stay in power — in this case by reaching out to Democrats.

“When the Republican Establishment acts like Democrats, what is the point of supporting them?” Mr. Phillips said in an early morning email blast. “The answer is, we don’t have to.

“Every McDaniel supporter in Mississippi from DeSoto County in the North to Biloxi in the South should stand up today and tell Chris McDaniel that if he runs as a write-in candidate in November, they will support him,” he said.

As it stands, Mr. McDaniel refused to concede the race, saying he wants to make sure the “sanctity” of the vote is upheld and that the race was decided by Republican voters.

But Mr. Phillips said those sorts of legal challenges rarely pan out and said Mr. McDaniel would have a better shot of taking out Mr. Cochran in the general election.

“The Republican Establishment thinks they have fought back an insurrection from conservatives and now we will meekly fall in line in November and support a RINO who needs Democrats to win? Never,” said Mr. Phillips, who also writes a column in The Washington Times. “If Chris McDaniel loses his challenges to this election, then he needs to be a write-in candidate this fall.”

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