When Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) was pressed by a local reporter on why he thinks Democrats should cross over to vote for him in the GOP primary runoff against conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel, Cochran said it’s because he originally was one of them.

Scott Simmons, an anchor for WAPT in Jackson, Miss., tweeted on Wednesday afternoon that, when he asked Cochran why he’s courting Democrats to vote for him, Cochran said: “I used to be a Democrat.”