The upcoming November 8th general election features contested elections in all four congressional districts.
In the first district Republican incumbent Rep. Trent Kelly will face Democratic nominee Dianne Black. In the second district Democratic incumbent Rep. Bennie Thompson will face Republican nominee Brian Flowers. In the third district Republican incumbent Rep. Michael Guest will face Democratic nominee Shuwaski Young. In the fourth district Republican nominee Mike Ezell will face Democratic nominee Johnny DuPree and Libertarian nominee Alden Johnson. The three incumbents are expected to win handily. Ezell is favored in the fourth district.
While these races will garner most voters’ attention over the next 15 weeks, many politicians and political kingmakers already have their eyes focused on 2023 statewide elections.
Lots of speculation centers on the governor’s race. Republican adversaries think Gov. Tate Reeves may be vulnerable. A recent poll showed Reeves’ 55% favorable rating among Republicans more than 25 points lower than previous GOP governors in their third year. Some are pushing House Speaker Philip Gunn and Secretary of State Michael Watson to run. Others are scouring the state for an accomplished business or civic leader to get in the race.
The latest scuttlebutt says Gunn will run for governor or nothing (his favorable poll rating was just 27%), businessman and IHL Board member Tommy Duff said no, and 2019 candidate Bill Waller, Jr., is not interested. On the Democratic side speculation centers on Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Pressley. Is he ready to step out of his safe post and try to become the first Democratic governor to be elected this century? Ronnie Musgrove was the last one in 1999.
In the lieutenant governor’s race speculation centers, as it has in recent years, around state Sen. Chris McDaniel. Did Michael Cassidy’s surprise showing in the third congressional district primary this year whet McDaniel’s appetite to take on Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann? Hosemann has won his previous elections handily, but some in the more conservative wing of the party would like to see a McDaniel type elected. That recent poll showed Hosemann’s favorable rating among Republicans at 40%.
What will Republican incumbents Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Auditor Shad White do? Both are riding high from positive publicity – Finch for her right to life win in the U.S. Supreme Court and White for his crackdowns on government corruption. Will either seek to move up or just be content to build war chests for future opportunities? Current betting is they will stay put. State Treasurer David McRae, Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, and Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, also Republican incumbents, are expected to seek re-election.
If Watson runs for governor, though, one of the above may run for secretary of state.
Will Democrats be a factor? So long as Mississippi remains a majority Republican state Democrats will find it hard to win. Indeed, the only potential Democratic candidate gaining any speculative attention is Pressley. And few expect Democrats to show any new strength this November.
FYI – only Reeves, Hosemann, and Gunn were included in the Blueprint Polling survey.
“My soul, wait in silence for God alone, for my expectation is from him” – Psalm 62:5.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.
25 comments:
I have voted for Governor Tate & Lt Governor Hoseman every time they have run for office; BUT NOT THIS TIME!!!!!!!! Tate & Hoseman "LIED" to the people of Mississippi!!! What happen to letting the people of Mississippi decide on the flag?????? Instead of Tate & Hoseman let there hand pick people choose the flag!!!!! I will vote for a "DEMOCRATE" before I vote for those 2 guys!!!!!!!
Will Democrats be a factor?
No.
Crawford conveniently omits sharing that Blueprint Polling is actually Chism Strategies. Caveat Emptor.
Maybe it is sacrilege to admit this, but I think Mississippi would be better off with a Democrat governor next time around. Not a flaming liberal but a moderate if that is possible. Complete Republican domination has given us gridlock and a germ like Tater does not give us any standing among the many other Red states. At this point the Republican party in Mississippi is only concerned with maintaining the machine and not moving Mississippi forward. A little balance might usher some new ideas worth pursuing.
10:03 AM, Chism Strategies? Say no more. Brad Chism can't hit the broad side of a barn with his polls. Just ask Mike Espy. Then ask Mike a second time.
I'm gonna go WAAAAAAAAAY out on a limb here, gaze into my crystal ball and predict that Bennie Thompson will trounce, overwhelm, spank and otherwise soundly defeat Republican Brian Flowers.
Good grief, let the flag thing go.
"Then ask Mike a second time."
OUCH.
I stand with — well, pretty close to, anyway — 10:01. But I want to add to that some Gunn control as well.
Break up this game in which the blue team bullies own the bat and the red team bullies own the ball and nobody else gets to play. Vote Green, vote Reform, vote Constitution, vote Tax Payers, hell, vote anything just to throw the apparatchik sonzabitches out on their asses and into the streets where they belong.
Hell, no, 11:26. I ain’t fergittin’.
10:55…. Yeah. Easy to win when the votes are already counted. Bolton alone doesn’t have the votes but BT manages a win every time. Rigged.
The runoff between Cassidy and warmonger, Pelosi supporting Guest shows that voting in MS is a waste of time, and the power elite will get what they want every time. May as well just plan on Tate Reeves being re-elected and then Hyde-Smith retiring from the Senate in 2026 and Reeves running for and winning that seat.
Tater is a traitor.
Hoseman gave us the hose, man.
And Gunn shot us in the back.
The people should have gotten a chance to vote on changing the flag, as promised. I will vote against anyone who sold us out to the mob in 2020.
4:50 The flag? Give it a rest fella. How do you function always looking backwards? Amazing!
The old flag is dead, how is that one issue worth throwing away a vote on?
The sad thing is that there is not a decent candidate from either party. All of them are mediocre at best.
The sad thing is that there is not a decent candidate from either party. All of them are mediocre at best.
I see Gunn sitting tight til 2027, goes out on top as Speaker. McDaniel gives Delbert a run but falls short, to out there for the majority. Lynn hopefully gets an appointment and we then can get a real AG, possibly Shad? Andy and Watson sit tight both distancing themselves from McDanielites(Watson) MPVR(Andy). As for Cassidy? The Navy ain’t through him, after that pans out he and his partner will move back to the North.
6:10 is the man to whom we must pay heed. He's the businessman who brought all those jobs to Mississipians once our betters made that flag right.
If Presley is as smart of a politician as he's supposed to be, he'll start mending fences with older Democratic women in a hurry.
Older women do the real work of the party. And some of those old gals are crafty enough to send him crawling back to PSC in a hot minute.
I am a Republican but I don’t like of the Republican choices but there is no way in hell that I would vote for a democrat. Anyone saying they would is not a true Republican with the country being the way it is.
Any regular on this blog could have written that article. By the way, the sky is blue.
Gunn was the force behind over turning Roe. He has been for a decade. Lynn just got to put her name on the case.
2:06, maybe Cassidy's loss simply means that not all conservatives are wacko, ignorant, McDaniel type conspiracy theorists. Doesn't bode well for McDaniel.
9:14
Nailed it! That was 100% Gunn’s push. People can say what they want about him but he has guts. Also agreed Lynn had zero to do with it and hopefully the future voters see that while she plots her next move.
9:15
Agreed, unfortunately they are a loud obnoxious bunch though.
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