Black mold and dark money dominate waning days of nasty GOP primary in Mississippi

While Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann goes into Tuesday's Republican primary with far more money available than his far-right challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, the top conservative megadonor in America is doing his part to help the challenger pull off an upset for this powerful post.

McDaniel first rose to national prominence in 2014 when he nearly ousted the late Sen. Thad Cochran in a nasty primary runoff in this dark red state, a defeat the challenger never accepted. (Like Donald Trump, he was still insisting years later that he believed he'd won.) His contest with Hosemann has likewise been an ugly and expensive affair.

Mississippi Today's Geoff Pender reports that a super PAC called Invest in Mississippi raised $885,000 through late July, with a little more than half of that cash coming from dark money groups that don't need to disclose their donors. However, the balance was from Save Our Constitution PAC, an Ohio-based organization funded almost entirely by Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein. Save Our Constitution PAC was founded this year to pass a constitutional amendment in Ohio that would make it far harder to ever change the state's governing document again, but it also seems to be functioning as a vehicle for Uihlein to direct some of his largesse toward the Magnolia State.