Three Mississippi legislators were elected to judicial posts this year, necessitating special elections for the final year of the legislative term. But none of the seats will be competitive from a partisan standpoint.
Rep. Brad Touchstone, a freshman Republican lawmaker from Oak Grove, was elected County Journal Judge in Lamar county on November 6. Touchstone was instrumental in the passage of the Occupational Board Compliance Act of 2017, key occupational licensure reform the legislature adopted two years ago.
The district is overwhelmingly Republican and certain to stay in the Republican column.
Two Democrats also won judicial positions. Rep. Adrienne Wooten of Jackson was elected a Hinds County Circuit Court judge while Rep. Willie Perkins of Greenwood was elected a chancery judge for the judicial district that covers Bolivar, Coahoma, Leflore, Quitman, Tallahatchie and Tunica counties.
Both of these districts are certain to stay in Democratic hands.
Gov. Phil Bryant will set a special election after the members formally resign from the legislature. The special election winners, particularly if they win a runoff, will only be present for a short period of time for the session that concludes the first week of April.
They will then have to get back on the campaign trail and win again in the fall when every seat in the legislature is on the ballot.
With Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s victory in the special election runoff to fill the remainder of Sen. Thad Cochran’s term, Mississippi voters did what they have done for the past 30 years; vote for a Republican Senator.
To find the last time a Democrat won a U.S. Senate race in Mississippi, you would have to go back to 1982 when a young Republican political operative named Haley Barbour lost to Sen. John Stennis, a Democrat who had held the seat since 1947.
In that context, Hyde-Smith, or any other Republican winning, isn’t that unusual. It is what Mississippi voters prefer. Just as voters in California or Connecticut will continue to elect Democratic Senators.
After all, Mississippi is considered the least “elastic” state in the country. What does that mean? An elastic state is one that is relatively sensitive or responsive to political winds of the day. It doesn’t necessarily mean a “swing-state” in that sense of the phrase, but rather one where there are a lot of swing voters.
Mississippi just doesn’t have that, and that is largely due to the two largest voting blocs in the state. Both African Americans and white evangelicals are among the most loyal to a particular party and unlikely to change those loyalties. And right now, Republicans have a bigger chunk of the vote.
Still, many thought this vote might be different. Just look at what happened in Alabama last year we were told. If a Democrat could win there, surely they have a shot in a state that is a little less Republican than Alabama. But that was a lazy analysis that omitted major details. For example, Roy Moore was already less popular than the median Alabama Republican candidate even before he was accused of various improprieties from an earlier time in his life.
Without that angle to leverage, we had the “kitchen-sink” approach where Mike Espy and allies, often in the media, simply threw everything they could at Hyde-Smith. You mean she sends her daughter to private school? The travesty. Call MSNBC immediately. Admittedly, the public hanging comment was tone-deaf and extremely unwise and likely provided some energy to the left, but it was hardly the statement of racially animus the national media and progressives tried desperately to make it out to be.
The apparent strategy was to maximize turnout among supporters while hoping to depress Republican support for Hyde-Smith. In some ways that worked. Espy's voters returned and Hyde-Smith trailed typical Republican margins in GOP strongholds like Rankin, Desoto, and Lamar counties by about 5 points. With 90 percent of precincts reporting in the runoff, Espy received just under 360,000 votes. Nearly the same number received three weeks earlier. Hyde-Smith, however, was only at 430,000, far below the combined 515,000 she and state Sen. Chris McDaniel received.
Espy will end up with an overall percentage close to that achieved by former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2008. Musgrove’s 45 percent of the vote was certainly helped by the excitement of Barack Obama at the top of the ballot, but Musgrove did two things Espy didn’t; he ran as a conservative and he talked about issues.
Unfortunately, issues were something we heard relatively little about in this election. Every race seems more like a litmus test of President Trump’s appeal or the Left’s resistance than it does a discussion of policy solutions. We have substantive problems in Mississippi and we need public policy solutions that focus on our state and our citizens.
Future campaign strategies will be left for those who run campaigns and focus on transactional politics. But when we look at the data, one underlying principle remains; Democrats have a very high basement (meaning the vote total anyone with a D next to their name will receive), but a very low ceiling. The variables seemed to align perfectly (save for a Moore-like scandal) if Democrats were ever going to pull off an upset. And yet they still came up short.
National media will come and go. Same with out of state operatives and campaign cash. But from any objective measure, Mississippi remains a Republican state. On most matters, that means a “conservative” state.
Especially with something as consequential in the eyes of voters as a United States Senate seat on the line, it doesn’t appear than the Magnolia State has any interest in sending a liberal or a progressive to Washington.
This column appeared in Y'all Politics on November 27, 2018.
Outrage culture flared up again recently as election results poured in for analysis. By Wednesday morning, the political left had decided any shortcoming of Democratic nominees could be blamed on one demographic—white women.
Across the nation, the American people made their choice. The Senate remained red, while the House flipped blue. CNN Politics published a detailed breakdown of voter turnout demographics by age, race, gender, and party. Disgruntled voters shared screenshots of Democratic elections lost where women voted for the Republican choice.
The statistical breakdown of the white female vote “prove” to ideologues that white women betrayed themselves and the “sisterhood” by electing and re-electing white, male Republicans. This is the only conclusion they drew.
For the ideologically possessed, it could not be possible that women would willingly and wholesomely elect, for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz by their own free will. If not betrayal, it must be oppression that forced their hand into a red vote.
White women “choose to uphold white supremacy and patriarchy,” according to Vox, likening the exit poll data of 2018 to the opposition of racial integration of schools. Ironically, this demonization of white women is a huge reason one might not consider a vote across the aisle.
The insult of this blame is two-fold. First, the collectivist view assumed of women only sees them as a voting bloc. In the effort to recognize women with a feminist lens, the left has only diminished each women’s individuality by writing her story for her. Insisting that women of any race are indebted to any political force sounds eerily like oppression. Oppression also sounds a lot like insisting one vote a certain way, think a certain way, and be shamed for deviating.
Secondly, the intelligence and autonomy of women is belittled. To say that the white women who voted for Cindy-Hyde Smith, a white female Republican, are subject to their own ignorance or familial oppression is laughable.
In a 41.4% to 40.7% vote, Cindy-Hyde Smith will have to win a runoff vote to retain her Senate seat. Are white women of Mississippi to blame for possibly electing the first female Mississippi Senator to office?
It is confusing to be a woman in Mississippi reflecting on these exit poll reactions. As a woman, ought I fall in line and vote for a woman or a Democrat? It is curious which would be a more loyal action to this myopic worldview.
Tracking social points following every election would prove to be exhausting.
The reality is every vote is counted once, not weighted by age, race, or gender. Ideally, our votes reflect our values and policy beliefs. Such a simple concept ought not be controversial.
It is not the burden of any single group or demographic to carry any candidate over the finish line. Instead, it is the responsibility of each active voter to consider their own decision. It’s shocking to see feminism ostracize their own people for the social crime of voting autonomy.
If Mississippi women are viewed as so void of independent thought that they can’t be trusted with their own beliefs, the left should get used to losing more female votes.
Anja Baker is a Contributing Fellow for Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Even with the much publicized and much shared remark from Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith about public hangings, the path to victory for any Democrat is very difficult. And potentially impossible to complete.
Last week, Mississippians had the unique task of voting in two separate U.S. Senate races.
Sen. Roger Wicker, who has served since 2008 and was running in the regularly scheduled Senate race, defeated State Rep. David Baria, a Democrat from Hancock county, 59-39.
The other election was to fill the remainder of the term for former Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired earlier this year. Under Mississippi’s special election rules, there is simply a non-partisan, jungle primary where the top two vote getters advance to a runoff if no candidate receives 50 percent plus one.
The election featured three main candidates: Sen. Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, State Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Republican from Jones county who nearly toppled Cochran four years ago, and Mike Espy, a former Democratic Congressman and member of the Clinton cabinet.
The final vote was 42 percent for Hyde-Smith, 41 percent for Espy, and 17 percent for McDaniel. The presence of two Republicans diluted the overall GOP vote and takes away from the work Espy will have in the runoff.
Republican and Democrat totals in special election
Special election results, by county (combined Republican and Democrat votes)
When total Republican vote is highlighted, rather than top vote getter in each county, it tells a different story than a map showing Espy making inroads in a number of traditional Republican counties. In fact, the total GOP vote looks very similar to the Wicker/ Baria map. Republicans were somewhat split, but at the end of the day Democrats only received 40 or 41 percent in both elections.
Indeed, Copiah, Oktibbeha, and Yazoo counties were the only counties carried by Wicker where the GOP did not receive a majority between Hyde-Smith and McDaniel.
While trailing by just one point may appear comforting, the path to a majority is much harder for Espy. Rather than 15-20 percent of the electorate being up for grabs, it is more likely that Espy is near the Democrat ceiling when it comes to a Senate seat in Mississippi. Especially when it is a runoff on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Going back to 2006, Republicans have won between 55 and 64 percent of the vote in the six Senate elections held in the state. The high point for Democrats was Ronnie Musgrove’s 45 percent in 2008. And that was with Musgrove running as a conservative (something Espy certainly is not). With Barack Obama on the top of the ballot and John McCain held to just 56 percent.
Both campaigns will work on turning out and maximizing their support in the runoff. The problem for Espy is there likely aren’t enough people to turn out. Even McDaniel himself quickly came out and endorsed Hyde-Smith, something he didn’t do in 2014. It would be wishful thinking to presume McDaniel voters are up for grabs in any significant fashion.