Palin to Campaign for McDaniel in Mississippi on Friday

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi —

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will campaign for Tea Party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel on Friday morning, the McDaniel campaign announced on Thursday.

Palin, a Tea Party leader, endorsed McDaniel months ago and will be joining the state senator and conservative primary challenger to longtime incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) at a rally in Ellisville on Friday morning.

“Can you feel it?” McDaniel wrote in a Thursday afternoon release from his campaign. “The momentum is with us. And I’m honored to announce that Sarah Palin is coming to Ellisville to support our campaign for freedom here in Mississippi! Sarah Palin is a strong voice for our conservative values in Mississippi and across the nation, and we’re closing out this campaign with our biggest rally yet in Ellisville tomorrow.”

The Palin event for McDaniel begins at 11 a.m. on Friday, in McDaniel’s home city of Ellisville–a small town just outside Hattiesburg. The event’s doors open for rally-goers at 10 a.m. at the Jones County Junior College. 

The race is one of Mississippi’s–and the country’s–most bitter ever intra-GOP battles in recent history and has shaped up to be the race that determines the next stages of the Tea Party movement on a national level.

Palin is running radio advertisements on behalf of McDaniel right now statewide.