The Path To Victory Doesn't Go Through Mississippi In 2020

Mississippi is neither the reddest nor the most Trumpist state in the union. The PVI is solidly red-- R+9-- but not as red as states that don't have big populations of minority groups that tend to vote for Democrats. Idaho is R+19; Kansas is R+13. Montana R+11, North Dakota R+17 and Wyoming is R+25. But electorally, none of those states is more likely to vote for Trump than Mississippi is. In fact... current polling has Montana behaving like a federal election swing state (just like Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and even South Carolina in a stretch). Mississippi isn't. More about that below. First a little detour into the Mississippi Senate election pitting Democrat Mike Espy against former Democrat, now Confederate Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. This week, Deep South Voice reported that the white folks in Mississippi (Republicans) want to make sure that they all know Espy isn't (white).

Phil Bryant, Mississippi’s outgoing Republican governor, is warning that the election of Democrat Mike Espy, an African American who served as the US Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton, would kick off a millennium of “darkness.” Espy is challenging US Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican that Bryant appointed to fill a vacancy in the nation’s upper chamber of Congress in 2018.

“I intend to work for @cindyhydesmith as if the fate of America depended on her single election,” Bryant wrote on January 2. “If Mike Espy and the liberal Democrats gain the Senate we will take that first step into a thousand years of darkness.”





On Monday, Espy responded to that dramatic remark in an email to supporters that included a screenshot of the governor’s tweet.

“Team, take a look at this. … A bit over the top, don’t you think?,” Espy wrote in the email, which included a screenshot of Bryant’s tweet. “Mike’s for accessible, affordable health care and for the lower cost of prescription drugs; he’s for quality public education and higher teacher pay; and he’s for helping rural hospitals and working families. And he’s for the bright future that Mississippi deserves.”

“Cindy Hyde-Smith said her 2020 campaign ‘will be meaner this time.’ Based on this statement made by the Governor of Mississippi, we can all see where this is going. If we want a leader who aspires to bring us together and who will work on both sides of the aisle, rather than divide, we must elect Mike Espy this year.”

Within his tweet, Bryant shared a video from the National Republican Senate Majority. The video-- which flashes clips of Democrats who are almost all either Black, Jewish, or women-- warns that “everything is under attack” including “the (Supreme) Court,” the Constitution, and “our way of life.”

In an interview with Y’all Politics, a Mississippi outlet that frequently helps establishment Republicans get their message out, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith lamented that she talked to Donald Trump about how she “went through fire” in 2018, when she was lambasted from the left and the right for her comment about how she would “be on the front row” at a “public hanging.”

That remark, which was commonly used during a time when Mississippi had the highest rate of African American lynchings in the country, was especially notable because Espy was her opponent in 2018, too.

“I think people may see that, wow, she’s a little meaner than she was last time and, you know, we’re just ready for it,” the senator said. “We know it’s gonna be a battle. We know we’re gonna be accused and called everything that you can possibly be accused and called, but that’s okay. We’re ready for it.”

The day after Hyde-Smith’s “public hanging” comments surfaced in a video on Bayou Brief last year, Governor Phil Bryant took to a podium, with Hyde-Smith next to him, and said the media should focus, instead, on how Black women who have abortions are committing “the genocide of 20 million African American children.”

“See, in my heart, I am confused about where the outrage is at about 20 million African American children that have been aborted. No one wants to say anything about that. No one wants to talk about that,” Bryant said at the time, the Jackson Free Press reported.

In the recent Y’all Politics interview, Hyde-Smith also bragged about stopping a vote on universal background checks for gun purchases just minutes after the start of a California school shooting last year-- a decision that drew criticism from Mike Espy.

“I’m the US senator that stepped up and said, I object and it stopped the entire process,” she said. “Of course I was blamed for school shootings after that. That’s part of the business and you have to be tough.”

Like I said, Mississippi isn't going for anyone but Trump in 2020-- and in the primary... that's very likely a Biden state.

If job approval is an indication of how someone is likely to vote, a Bernie v Trump election in November isn't going to be close. The new Morning Consult state by state job approval numbers for Trump are out and basically he has only 13 states locked down (with 79 electoral votes). Bernie would have 23 states locked down (with 269 electoral votes). The incontestable Trump states-- from bad to worst in terms of job approval:

• Missouri- +6
• Kansas- +7
• Utah- +7
• Oklahoma- +8
• Louisiana- +9
• Arkansas- +10
• Kentucky- +14
• Mississippi- +14
• Tennessee- +15
• Idaho- +16
• West Virginia- +21
• Alabama- +22
• Wyoming- +28

And these are the states that the Democrats would begin the general election campaign with lock-downs-- from safe blue to tsunami blue:

• Maine- minus 6
• Pennsylvania- minus 6
• Iowa- minus 9
• New Mexico- minus 10
• Wisconsin- munus 10
• Minnesota- minus 10
• Nevada- minus 12
• New Jersey- minus 14
• Delaware- minus 15
• Michigan- minus 15
• Colorado- minus 18
• New Hampshire- minus 19
• Connecticut- minus 20
• Oregon- minus 20
• Illinois- minus 21
• Rhode Island- minus 23
• Maryland- minus 24
• Washington- minus 25
• New York- minus 25
• California- minus 28
• Hawaii- minus 28
• Massachusetts- minus 31
• Vermont- minus 35

That's an electoral college vote away from an immediate win and TRump's out on his lard ass. There are, arguably 14  contestable seats, at least according to Trump's sorry job approval numbers. (I know... South Carolina and the Dakotas are kind of stretching it.) This list goes from likeliest Trump to likeliest Bernie:

• South Carolina- +5
• North Dakota- +5
• South Dakota- +5
• Montana- +3
• Indiana- +3
• Texas- +1
• Nebraska- +1
• Florida- even
• North Carolina- even
• Alaska- minus 2
• Georgia- minus 2
• Ohio- minus 3
• Arizona- minus 3
• Virginia- minus 5

So 14 true battleground states. Let's say Trump wins every one of them but one-- any one... Bernie is president. All Bernie has to do is win one of the states were Trump is underwater-- Virginia, Arizona, Ohio being the most likely. Or how about this? He can win the one electoral vote he needs by taking Omaha, which is extremely likely.

Fetch The Smelling Salts-- There Is Still Racism In Mississippi Politics

Minnesota and Mississippi each has two Senate elections in November. In Mississippi, Senator Roger Wicker is up for reelection. In June he easily put away a Trumpist primary challenger Richard Boyanton 83-17%. The primary drew 157,170 voters, compared to just 87,931 in the Democratic primary, which resulted in a runoff between Howard Sherman (31.79%) and David Baria (30.98%)-- 713 votes separating them. In the runoff the following month Baria beat Sherman 58.6% to 41.4%. Baria will face Wicker in November.

Wicker, something of a mainstream conservative, was lucky. Very well-known neo-fascist Chris McDaniel had jumped into the primary against him early but switched races when Thad Cochran announced he would resign. Governor Bryant appointed state Agriculture Secretary Cindy Hyde-Smith, another mainstream conservative, who McDaniel saw as a much easier target (even though someone, presumably McConnell, persuaded Trump to endorse Hyde-Smith). That election, also on November 6, will be a non-partisan jungle primary with Hyde-Smith and McDaniel running as well as Democrat Mike Espy, a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and some guy named Tobey Bartlee.

OK, let me explain how this one works-- no party primaries and no party labels on ballot. To win 50% is needed-- which isn't going to happen, mandating a November 27 runoff. The winner serves the remainder of Cochran's term, which means they'll be running in 2020. Imagine in we wake up November 7 and control of the U.S. Senate will be determined by the November 27 runoff, presumably between Hyde-Smith and Espy!

I'm sure you know Mississippi is a very red state-- PVI is R+9, so not as red as, for example, Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Louisiana, all of which something do elected Democrats. In 2016 Trump beat Hillary 700,714 (57.9%) to 485,131 (40.1%). The last time Mississippi went for a Democratic presidential candidate was when Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.

As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline McDaniel had raised $3,516,916, Hyde-Smith $1,653,930 and Espy $408,236. The U.S. Chamber off Commerce had already spent $2,100,000 bolstering Hyde-Smith and battering McDaniel. A Mason-Dixon poll released April 10, shows that Hyde-Smith would beat Espy 46% to 34% but that Espy would beat McDaniel 42% to 40%. That may or may not be predictive of what could actually happen on November 27 with control of the Senate hanging in the balance, but for Espy to have have any real shot at this, McDaniel has to beat Hyde-Smith. That doesn't look likely, but he's definitely appealing to the absolutely worst instincts of the Mississippi far far far right... which is pretty powerful in that state. So how does that appeal manifest itself? Let me count the ways; no let me show one example from Friday when McDaniel was taping a segment for Morning Joe. Watch:



He defends his anti-hip hop statement (by blaming UC Berkeley) and defends his support for the Confederate flag (by blaming democracy) but when panelist Eddie Glaude pushes him on how he's going to convince the 38% of Mississippi voters-- African-Americans-- that he doesn't pose a danger to them. Notice that his blatantly racist response drew immediate and sustained booing from the live audience. Now why would anyone boo this?

"I’m going to ask them, after 100 years of relying on big government to save you, where are you today? After 100 years of begging for federal government scraps, where are you today?"

Remember, that was specifically a question about black Mississippi voters. I wonder what he would say about these white Mississippi voters, McDaniels' base. Listen to the questions and answers carefully, especially when they get to the guy with the dental problems... I'm talking about the state of Mississippi. We’ve been dead last for 100 years. And what happens is, if we keep dependent on that economic model, we’re always going to stay last."



In August, McDaniel tweeted to his followers that "In light of all the political correctness and leftist hysteria, I'm curious about what you think: How should Robert E. Lee be remembered? McDaniel has less than 13,000 twitter followers but his question generated nearly 140,000 votes-- probably not the ones he was expecting or hoping for:

UPDATE: Intruder In The Dust (1949)

Keep in mind, this was filmed in Faulkner's hometown, Oxford, Mississippi. Skip turned me onto it and explained why it's so hard to find: "Perhaps that's because in the film the N-word is frequently delivered with all the dehumanizing nastiness the term was created for. I recently saw a DVD in a DC library and checked it out. The film is a stunner. It’s a great time-capsule of life then."