fbpx
Connect with us

Mississippi Today

A close governor’s race is nothing new for Tate Reeves. Can he repeat his 2019 closing?

Published

on

A close governor’s race is nothing new for Tate Reeves. Can he repeat his 2019 closing?

In mid-October 2019, Democrat Jim Hood held a 46% to 42% among likely voters over Republican Tate Reeves in the governor’s race, according to a poll conducted by the Hood campaign.

In most of the multiple internal polls conducted in 2019 by Hickman Analytics, Hood maintained a lead over Reeves. True, Hickman Analytics, a national pollster, was employed by the Hood campaign, but the intent of the poll, like most internal polls conducted by campaigns, was to an accurate reflection of the of the election. None of the polls conducted by Hickman, except for one, were released to the public during the heated 2019 election.

Obviously, those polls did not reflect the outcome of the election. Reeves won 52% to 47%, or by about 45,000 votes out of the almost 875,000 votes cast.

But people who conduct polls like to say they are a snapshot in time. In October 2019, there might have been people who thought they were going to vote for Hood, but in the end did not. It is ingrained in the DNA of many not to vote for the Democrat.

It is also reasonable to assume that in the final days of the 2019 election, there were people who had thought they were not going to vote for Tate Reeves, but in the end decided they would rather vote for a Republican they were not enamored with instead of the Democratic candidate.

If the governor’s 2023 race against Democratic challenger Brandon Presley is indeed as close as some people contend, the question is whether Mississippians are ready to vote for the Democrat instead of a Republican incumbent governor who, for whatever reason, many people have a reluctance to . In the most recent Morning Consult rankings of the popularity of governors, only two governors were viewed more unfavorably by their constituents than Reeves was by Mississippians. Reeves was viewed as favorable by 46% and unfavorable by 44%.

In 2019, Reeves was greatly aided by a rally then-President Donald Trump held for him on the Friday before the election in — in the heart of northeast Mississippi, which had been Hood’s base of support in past elections. Hood ended up losing that region, which he had won in four previous statewide elections for .

This year Trump will not be coming to Mississippi to stump for Reeves before the general election, but the former president did make a endorsing him. The Reeves campaign, thrilled with the video, is running it on social media and as a television commercial.

It is of interest that in ruby red Mississippi — where a Democrat has not won the Governor’s Mansion since 1999 and where the Democratic presidential candidate has won the state only once since 1956 — that Republican Tate Reeves is depending on Donald Trump to carry him to victory.

Perhaps that says more about Reeves‘ appeal to Mississippi voters than any poll.

Will the Trump endorsement have as much of an impact as many believed the Trump rally did in 2019?

In 2019, as Trump appeared in Tupelo, the U.S. House was in the of impeaching the president. The Hood campaign believed anger over that impeachment galvanized Mississippians for the Republican Reeves in 2019. A matter of fact, Trump spoke more about the impeachment than he did about Reeves at that Tupelo rally.

This year Trump is under criminal indictment in four separate jurisdictions on charges related to trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election he lost and for trying to hide the fact he left office with classified documents and refused to return them.

Will those criminal indictments impact the governor’s election in Mississippi positively or negatively or at all?

According to the 2019 poll, Trump was viewed favorably by 46% and unfavorably by 43%.

This time around, according to a /Siena College poll conducted in August of this year, voters were more split over Trump. The poll found 49% had a favorable view of the former president while 48% had an unfavorable view.

Could the outcome of 2023 Mississippi governor’s election be predicated more on voter’s perception of Donald Trump than of Tate Reeves?

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1875

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-02 07:00:00

Nov. 2, 1875

Pictured here are U.S. Sen. Hiram Revels of Mississippi, left, with six Black members of the U.S. House, Ben J.S. Turner of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, Jefferson H. Long of Georgia, and Robert C. De Large, Joseph H. Rainy and R. Brown Elliot, all of South Carolina. Credit: Library of

The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from , resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the

A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state. 

Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton. 

The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan. 

John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.” 

A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Mary Margaret White – 2024-11-01 12:34:00

High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.

In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here at Mississippi we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.

Why NewsMatch and Why Now?

This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.

Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday —whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help understand and engage with what’s happening around them.

Special Event: “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact”

As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.” Join Deep South Today newsrooms and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s “25-foot ,” which affects journalists’ ability to report vital .

We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!

How You Can Help

Make Your Gift Today

Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.

Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we love—not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to .

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Hinds County loses fight over control of jail

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-01 12:57:00

The sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.   

Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, a failure to protect detainees from harm. 

However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.

The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be

The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date. 

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion. 

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which people facing trial. 

“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.  

This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022. 

The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in

The county had a to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old and use of force. 

Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.

But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff. 

The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference. 

Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending