Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Sid Salter: Passion's High but State's Numbers Have Remained Reliably Red

Like everything else in 2020, the election cycle seems to have been going on for WAY too long. In less than two weeks, the never-ending campaign will have ended. 

  The bitterness, rancor, and division in the country may not end on Nov. 3, but hopefully, the election itself will be behind us. That, of course, assumes no recounts or other electoral funny business. But one gets the sense that the traditional “orderly transfer of power” after the election may be the source of some held breaths and whispered prayers. 

 

Vote for whomever you please. That decision is between you and your conscience. But here are some observations about the upcoming elections in the Magnolia State. In my lifetime, political passions have likely never been higher or more deeply divided than in this election. On both sides, there is genuine anger and mistrust. 

 

The polls and prognosticators give Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden a solid lead of slightly more than nine percentage points over incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in the national polls. Ironically, those same polls and prognosticators gave Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a similar projected national lead over Trump in 2016. 

 

Regardless, Trump won the White House despite those predictions. Mississippi gave him one of his largest state percentage majorities. 

 

Since 1996, Mississippi has voted Republican in presidential politics by an average of 55.6 percent and Democratic by an average 42.2 percent — with the rest of the vote scattered among third party or independent candidates. 

 

From 1972 to the present, the only Democrat to carry Mississippi in a presidential general election was fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976. 

 

Trump in 2016 carried the state with 57.86 percent of the vote to 40.06 percent for Clinton. State voter turnout in 2016 was 1.211 million. Remember that number. In 2008, 1.7 million Mississippians voted. In 2012, some 1.2 million Mississippians voted. 

 

In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney won about 710,746 votes. In 2008, the GOP’s John McCain won 725,000. President Barack Obama’s total fell to 562,949, down 30,000 votes from 2008 to 2012. 

 

Obama won 43.7 percent of the 2012 vote in Mississippi - the second-best performance of any Democrat in the last nine election cycles. The only instance better was the 44.1 percent of Mississippi ballots that Bill Clinton garnered in his 1996 re-election win. 

 

Against that presidential election backdrop, Mississippi’s 2020 U.S. Senate race suggests some exciting and challenging questions. The numbers indicate that regardless of Trump’s national outcome, Mississippi is likely to again produce a majority vote for him as the GOP nominee. 

  

If that occurs, then-Democratic U.S. Senate challenger Mike Espy’s chances will hinge on attracting substantial crossover votes – Republican presidential voters who will vote to unseat a Republican senator and replace her with a Democrat. 

  

State voters saw this race in 2018, when incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Hyde-Smith defeated Espy by almost 66,000 votes, 53.6 percent to 46.4 percent. In that race, Espy outraised and outspent Hyde-Smith. Espy spent $6.97 million to Hyde-Smith’s $5.16 million. There was another $10.3 million in outside money spent in that race. 

  

Voters will recall that in their 2018 special election runoff, outside spending attack ads from both camps painted Hyde-Smith as an insensitive racist and Espy as a crooked public official for hire. 

  

Throughout a prior 18-year career in Mississippi politics, Hyde-Smith never faced allegations of that nature. Espy was cleared of all criminal charges against him more than 20 years ago and has enjoyed a successful law practice since that time. 

  

Given those facts, it would seem the most relevant issues in the Senate race are Hyde-Smith’s 2.5 years of seniority and her seats on the Senate Appropriations and Agriculture committees – and the question of which party controls the U.S. Senate after the election.  


 

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com. 

 

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Independent here. Voted for Cindy last time but am at a cross roads. She needs to get off of her ass and do something and he needs to show me I should vote for him and not because he is black, like I give a shit about that. Who do I vote for, a do nothing idiot or another, so far, do nothing idiot employed by M&M.

Anonymous said...

CHS is a weak candidate that will always be a liability for the GOP as long as she is in office. She was a horrible pick by Phil and fitting that she is his only lasting legacy.

Anonymous said...

Cindy Hyde Smith has yet to denounce white supremacy, racist lynchings, right wing militias, or Russian meddling in our elections. Mike Espy has denounced all of these and he has the support of President Barack Obama.

Anonymous said...

Well 10:59, your Dim-O-Krat heroes have yet to denounce all the violence from the left and their terrorist groups, "ANTIFA, BLM, Black Panthers...." the old sleepy Joe takes a knee pandering to low IQ Dim-O-Krat voters. Meanwhile sonny boy Biden is trying to get his hard drive wiped and all the liberal media has ignored all his involvement in China and Ukraine. Never forget that Putin led your illegal, muslim POTUS impostor like a bitch. Oh yea, don't forget all the illegal stunts you Dim-O-Krats tried to pull and got caught in the last election, so don't even try to pull the Russian Meddling statement!!!! You're too fuk'n stupid to even cheat You morons just won't be satisfied till can turn the whole state into a carbon copy of Jackson and all the Dim-O-Krat utopias in Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

CHS (aka Minnie Pearl) is a pitiful candidate/politician, but voting for Espy is not an option in my opinion (and no, not because he's black). I wish that somebody would put together a campaign for "None of the Above" like Monty Brewster did in the movie "Brewster's Millions" from the 1980's.

Anonymous said...

Phil's Legacy is the Welfare Money his friends stole.

Anonymous said...

I do not know Cindy but do support her and will vote for her.

Have known Espy about 30 years....would never vote for him.

Anonymous said...

10:59, has Espy denounced left wing hate groups burning down cities, attacking police officers and innocent civilians? Ha Espy said if he will support enlarging the Supreme Court? Has Espy denounced abolishing the 60 vote rule that prevents legislation based on the emotions of the day?

Don’t forget Espy was raising money To bale out the criminals throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers and setting fire to businesses.

Anonymous said...

I’ve known Cindy for 31 years and would never vote for her. She’s as dumb as she looks.

Anonymous said...

@12:20, those would all be good questions for a debate. Too bad CHS thinks letting people hear her thoughts will end her career. I don’t blame her for dodging a debate, she is just too dumb. I may start calling her RDF - Resting Dumb Face

Anonymous said...

This race will much tighter than it deserves to be in a state as conservative as Mississippi. Our gutless Senator Hang-em Hygh-Smith is a lousy candidate and will most likely win by a relatively slim margin only because she has an "R" after her name, and not on merit, ability or intelligence.

Anonymous said...

Espy is 100 percent Democrat. If he gets to Washington he'll be Chuck Schumer's poodle.

Anonymous said...

11:44 x 2.

Anonymous said...

When Chuck's going to be the majority leader, being his poodle wouldn't be a bad thing for Missippi.

Anonymous said...

I really wish Sid would do some true investigative journalism, rather than rambling about the obvious.

Anonymous said...

This November will be a Blue Tsunami. The GOP is going to be absolutely devastated and will likely never see anything resembling power again. This nation is absolutely fed up with the destruction of our planet, the senseless murder of People of Color by police, and most of all we can never again accept a racist, sexist, and homophobic monster as President of the United States.

Best to go ahead an elect someone who will be on the winning side as opposed to a donothing lame duck like CHS

Anonymous said...

@4:20

You must be some out-of-state agitator? MS will not be blue anytime soon. The red leadership has the state on lock via the families that control the statewide leadership. Sure there are blue pockets within the state, but this state will be red for a long time coming. CHS is a prime example of that. They could have picked a plethora of candidates from their ranks more worthy, but somehow CHS just had to be the one, and on what merits? I would have rather had Gunn or Hosemann in that seat than CHS, not that I really like either of them.



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