Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel on Monday officially announced a legal challenge to the results of the June 24 Republican Senate primary runoff election, demanding the state's Republican Party declare him the true winner of the runoff election.

"They asked us to put up or shut up. Here we are. Here we are with the evidence," McDaniel said during a press conference outside the office of Mitch Tyner, the campaign's lawyer.

McDaniel's decision to fight the runoff results, while not ultimately surprising, comes nearly six weeks after he was defeated in the Republican primary runoff by incumbent GOP Sen. Thad Cochran. In the immediate aftermath of the election, McDaniel refused to concede and claimed Cochran had "stolen" the race through an unusual strategy of encouraging voters who don't typically participate in Republican primaries to come to the polls.

The Mississippi Republican Party certified the results of the runoff election on July 8, giving Cochran a margin of victory of more than 7,600 votes. Cochran's campaign has dismissed McDaniel's challenge and has made a point of focusing on the general election.

Tyner said Monday that the McDaniel campaign had found more than 15,000 "questionable" votes, including 3,500 illegal "crossover" votes. McDaniel's campaign said he should have won by more than 25,000 votes. It's unclear how the campaign produced that number. But it likely represents the number of Democrats the McDaniel campaign estimated voted in the Republican primary but don't plan to vote for the Republican nominee in the general election.

"We anticipate that after they review the challenge that they'll see that Chris McDaniel clearly, clearly won the Republican vote on the runoff," Tyner said. "I say that very assuredly, because that's what the mathematics show."

But Tyner said the McDaniel campaign wasn't trying to force a new election.

"We're not asking for a new election. We’re asking the Republican Party simply recognize who actually won the election," Tyner said.

The Cochran campaign said in a statement Monday it has retained the law firm Butler Snow to defend the campaign in the challenge. Cochran campaign attorney Mark Garriga said the campaign was ready to defend itself in a "setting where nothing matters but admissible evidence and the rule of law."

"Like other Mississippians, we have watched with interest as the McDaniel campaign has made repeated and baseless allegations of fraud and misconduct against not only members of the Cochran campaign staff, but also Circuit Clerks and volunteer poll workers around the state," Garriga said.



"The filing of this challenge marks the point where this matter moves from an arena of press conferences and rhetoric into a setting where nothing matters but admissible evidence and the rule of law. We look forward to holding the McDaniel campaign to the burden of proof that the law requires."

The McDaniel campaign had previously claimed it has found thousands of voter "irregularities" in reviewing the runoff election results, as well as a number of illegal "crossover" votes from Democrats who shouldn't have been allowed to vote in the June 24 Republican primary runoff. The Cochran campaign, while releasing detailed, specific county-by-county breakdowns, says there aren't even close to as many questionable votes as the McDaniel campaign would need to mount a legitimate challenge.

Mississippi election law, which mandates runoffs between the top two candidates if no candidate in a primary earns over 50% of the vote, bars people from voting in one party's primary and then crossing over to vote in another party's runoff. Though there are few procedures to enforce this, the law says only people who voted in the Republican primary or didn't vote at all were eligible to vote in the June 24 runoff.

"That’s just not true," the source in the Cochran campaign told Business Insider of the supposed number of "irregularities."

The McDaniel campaign's continued refusal to surrender has continued the flame wars of an election many called the "nastiest" in the country. In early July, a source close to the Cochran campaign told Business Insider as part of a lengthy diatribe that McDaniel was mad the Cochran campaign "kicked his ass" and that he was the "sorest loser I've ever seen."

"Chris McDaniel is a trial lawyer, and he’s acting like one. He’s throwing out false flags and things that just aren’t true, and trying to get them into the news stream," the source said of McDaniel's refusal to concede.

This post has been updated with McDaniel's comments.