EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

Associated Press

JACKSON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers has won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Mississippi.

He is running for a seat that Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran has held for six terms. Cochran was challenged in Tuesday’s GOP primary by state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

Childers moves to the Nov. 4 general election and will face the Republican nominee and the Reform Party’s Shawn O’Hara.

Childers won north Mississippi’s 1st District U.S. House seat in a 2008 special election and was unseated in 2010 by a Republican who painted him as an ally of Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who was then House speaker.

Childers bristled at the portrayal, noting he had voted against Pelosi on big bills, including the health overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010.