Mississippi Today
Final election results: 2023 was the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999
Incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves garnered 50.9% of the vote in winning reelection on Nov. 7 — the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999.
Reeves garnered 418,233 votes (50.9%), Democrat Brandon Presley received 391,614 (47.7%) and independent Gwendolyn Gray received 11,153 votes (1.4%), according to final county-by-county voting totals posted this week by the secretary of state’s office.
Reeves beat Presley by 26,619 votes — a considerably tighter margin than the governor’s race four years ago, when Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood by 45,028 votes to win a first term in the Governor’s Mansion.
The secretary of state’s office did not receive the final results from all 82 counties until this week. Counties have a certain time period after the election to count late-arriving mail-in ballots and affidavit ballots.
A Democrat has not won the governor’s mansion in Mississippi since 1999, when Ronnie Musgrove prevailed with a plurality of the vote. Musgrove received 49.6% that year compared to 48.5% from Republican Mike Parker.
In 2019, Reeves won his first term as governor by defeating then-Attorney General Jim Hood 51.9% to 46.8%. While the percentage difference was closer in the 2023 election, Hood won more total votes in 2019 than Presley did this year. Hood received 414,368 votes in 2019, while Presley received 391,614 votes in 2023. In 2019, 63,911 more people voted than this year.
Presley narrowly captured three counties in 2023 that Hood did not win in 2019. Those counties were Lowndes, Grenada and Forrest. The 2023 election marked the first time since 1979 for a Democrat to win Forrest County. But Presley also lost two counties in 2023 that Hood won in 2019. Four years ago, Hood won the counties of Madison and Lafayette. Both those counties flipped to Reeves in 2023.
Those counties, along with Hood’s home county of Chickasaw and Oktibbeha, are the only majority white counties to vote for the Democrat in either election.
RESULTS: Mississippi statewide election 2023
Reeves will be the first Mississippi governor elected to a second term with a smaller percentage of the total vote than he received in winning his first term. It is important to note, though, that Reeves is only the fourth governor elected to consecutive terms. Mississippi governors have only been allowed to serve two terms since the late 1980s.
Also, Reeves received a much smaller percentage of the vote than the winners of the other seven statewide offices — all Republican.
For instance, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in winning reelection, won 490,956 votes or 60.7% of the total. The Democratic candidates for the other seven statewide posts ran lower profile and lower budget campaigns than their Republican opponents.
Presley, a four-term public service commissioner for the northern district, ran an aggressive campaign, outraising Reeves in 2023. The incumbent, though, came into the election year with a massive campaign war chest that dwarfed that of Presley.
In the first year in which a gubernatorial race could possibly have gone to a runoff, Reeves avoided that historic scenario by just 15,466 votes. Under a new state law, if no candidate for statewide office garners a majority vote, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.
Reeves ultimately prevailed by running up large margins on the Gulf Coast, in Presley’s home area of northeast Mississippi, and in certain areas of east Mississippi.
Presley garnered 54,006 votes in Democrat-rich Hinds County compared to 13,634 for Reeves. But despite Presley’s much ballyhooed get-out-the-vote effort in Hinds, Hood still garnered 2,125 more votes in Hinds in 2019 than did Presley in 2023.
Overall, the vote total in Hinds was down 4,182 in 2023 compared to 2019. It is difficult to say whether Hinds County election problems in 2023 caused fewer people to cast ballots. But Hinds had problems with long lines and with some precincts running out of ballots for extended periods of time.
Final results from other statewide races
Lieutenant governor:
Republican incumbent Delbert Hosemann: 490,956
Democrat Ryan Grover: 317,347
Attorney general
Republican incumbent Lynn Fitch: 470,270
Democrat Greta Kemp Martin: 339,948
Secretary of state
Republican incumbent Michael Watson: 481,895
Democrat Ty Pinkins: 328,067
Treasurer
Republican incumbent David McRae: 472,705
Democrat Addy Lee Green: 337,008
Auditor
Republican incumbent Shad White: 474,313
Democrat Larry Bradford: 334,418
Insurance commissioner
Republican incumbent Mike Chaney: 480,514
Democrat Bruce Burton: 329,214
Agriculture commissioner
Republican incumbent Andy Gipson: 467,901
Democrat Robert Bradford: 342,172
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=308113
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1946
Dec. 23, 1946
University of Tennessee refused to play a basketball game with Duquesne University, because they had a Black player, Chuck Cooper. Despite their refusal, the all-American player and U.S. Navy veteran went on to become the first Black player to participate in a college basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line. Cooper became the first Black player ever drafted in the NBA — drafted by the Boston Celtics. He went on to be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Ray Higgins: PERS needs both extra cash and benefit changes for future employees
Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison talks with Ray Higgins, executive director of the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System, about proposed changes in pension benefits for future employees and what is needed to protect the system for current employees and retirees. Higgins also stresses the importance of the massive system to the Mississippi economy.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
‘Bringing mental health into the spaces where moms already are’: UMMC program takes off
A program aimed at increasing access to mental health services for mothers has taken off at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
The program, called CHAMP4Moms, is an extension of an existing program called CHAMP – which stands for Child Access to Mental Health and Psychiatry. The goal is to make it easier for moms to reach mental health resources during a phase when some may need it the most and have the least time.
CHAMP4Moms offers a direct phone line that health providers can call if they are caring for a pregnant woman or new mother they believe may have unaddressed mental health issues. On the line, health providers can speak directly to a reproductive psychiatrist who can guide them on how to screen, diagnose and treat mothers. That means that moms don’t have to go out of their way to find a psychiatrist, and health care providers who don’t have extensive training in psychiatry can still help these women.
“Basically, we’re trying to bring mental health into the spaces where moms already are,” explained Calandrea Taylor, the program manager. “Because of the low workforce that we have in the state, it’s a lot to try to fill the state with mental health providers. But what we do is bring the mental health practice to you and where mothers are. And we’re hoping that that reduces stigma.”
Launched in 2023, the program has had a slow lift off, Taylor said. But the phone line is up and running, as the team continues to make additions to the program – including a website with resources that Taylor expects will go live next year.
To fill the role of medical director, UMMC brought in a California-based reproductive psychiatrist, Dr. Emily Dossett. Dossett, who grew up in Mississippi and still has family in the state, says it has been rewarding to come full circle and serve her home state – which suffers a dearth of mental health providers and has no reproductive psychiatrists.
“I love it. It’s really satisfying to take the experience I’ve been able to pull together over the past 20 years practicing medicine and then apply it to a place I love,” Dossett said. “I feel like I understand the people I work with, I relate to them, I like hearing where they’re from and being able to picture it … That piece of it has really been very much a joy.”
As medical director, Dossett is able to educate maternal health providers on mental health issues. But she’s also an affiliate professor at UMMC, which she says allows her to train up the next generation of psychiatrists on the importance of maternal and reproductive psychiatry – an often-overlooked aspect in the field.
If people think of reproductive mental health at all, they likely think of postpartum depression, Dossett said. But reproductive psychiatry is far more encompassing than just the postpartum time period – and includes many more conditions than just depression.
“Most reproductive psychiatrists work with pregnant and postpartum people, but there’s also work to be done around people who have issues connected to their menstrual cycle or perimenopause,” she explained. “… There’s depression, certainly. But we actually see more anxiety, which comes in lots of different forms – it can be panic disorder, general anxiety, OCD.”
Tackling mental health in this population doesn’t just improve people’s quality of life. It can be lifesaving – and has the potential to mitigate some of the state’s worst health metrics.
Mental health disorders are the leading cause of pregnancy-related death, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control as any death up to a year postpartum that is caused by or worsened by pregnancy.
In Mississippi, 80% of pregnancy-related deaths between 2016 and 2020 were deemed preventable, according to the latest Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report.
Mississippi is not alone in this, Dossett said. Historically, mental health has not been taken seriously in the western world, for a number of reasons – including stigma and a somewhat arbitrary division between mind and body, Dossett explained.
“You see commercials on TV of happy pregnant ladies. You see magazines of celebrities and their baby bumps, and everybody is super happy. And so, if you don’t feel that way, there’s this tremendous amount of shame … But another part of it is medicine and the way that our health system is set up, it’s just classically divided between physical and mental health.”
Dossett encourages women to tell their doctor about any challenges they’re facing – even if they seem normal.
“There are a lot of people who have significant symptoms, but they think it’s normal,” Dossett said. “They don’t know that there’s a difference between the sort of normal adjustment that people have after having a baby – and it is a huge adjustment – and symptoms that get in the way of their ability to connect or bond with the baby, or their ability to eat or sleep, or take care of their other children or eventually go to work.”
She also encourages health care providers to develop a basic understanding of mental health issues and to ask patients questions about their mood, thoughts and feelings.
CHAMP4Moms is a resource Dossett hopes providers will take advantage of – but she also hopes they will shape and inform the program in its inaugural year.
“We’re available, we’re open for calls, we’re open for feedback and suggestions, we’re open for collaboration,” she said. “We want this to be something that can hopefully really move the needle on perinatal mental health and substance use in the state – and I think it can.”
Providers can call the CHAMP main line at 601-984-2080 for resources and referral options throughout the state.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
-
Our Mississippi Home7 days ago
The Meaning of the Redbird During the Holiday Season
-
News from the South - North Carolina News Feed3 days ago
Social Security benefits boosted for millions in bill headed to Biden’s desk • NC Newsline
-
Mississippi Today6 days ago
Mississippi PERS Board endorses plan decreasing pension benefits for new hires
-
Local News3 days ago
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi Honors Veterans with Wreath-Laying Ceremony and Holiday Giving Initiative
-
Mississippi News Video4 days ago
12/19- Friday will be breezy…but FREEZING by this weekend
-
Local News3 days ago
MDOT suspends work, urges safe driving for holiday travel
-
News from the South - Missouri News Feed4 days ago
Could prime Albert Pujols fetch $1 billion in today's MLB free agency?
-
News from the South - Texas News Feed5 days ago
Amazon workers strike at facilities around the country as Teamsters seek contract