Mississippi Today

Poll: Majority of Mississippi voters prefer new governor in 2023

Published

2 years ago

January 19, 2023

Poll: Majority of Mississippi voters prefer new governor in 2023

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
January 19, 2023

A majority of Mississippi voters would prefer a new governor in 2023, according to a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll.

The poll showed 57% of voters would support “someone else” over current Gov. Tate Reeves in a November election, while just 33% would support Reeves, who announced last week he will seek a second term as governor in the Nov. 2023 election.

Among Republican respondents, Reeves garnered 55% support in the scenario, while one-third of Republicans would prefer to elect someone else. More than two-thirds (67%) of independents, who in Mississippi often vote in Republican primaries, prefer someone else over just 24% who prefer Reeves.

But the poll wasn’t all bad for Reeves. He currently leads narrowly against a known Democratic challenger in the general election and leads handily against a potential Republican primary challenger, according to the survey results.

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story.Click hereto read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

Reeves leads Democrat Brandon Presley, the four-term public service commissioner who announced his campaign for governor last week, by a narrow 43%-39% margin, according to the poll. That margin is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.6%, meaning the race could either be virtually tied or Reeves could be up by 9 points. The statewide survey was conducted between Jan. 3-8, several days before Presley announced his candidacy.

Reeves carried strong support among Republicans in a head-to-head matchup with Presley, and Presley greatly outpaced Reeves among Democrats and narrowly among independents. One-third (33%) of independent respondents said they’d vote for Presley, 31% said they’d vote for Reeves and 27% said they didn’t know or had no opinion.

Presley, who has never held statewide office, is not well known across the state, according to the poll. Just 21% of Mississippi voters said they had a favorable opinion of Presley, 15% said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, and a substantial 61% said they did not know enough to say. Presley enjoyed the highest name ID in the 1st Congressional District, where he lives and where he has served as public service commissioner the past 15 years. But even there, 41% of respondents don’t know enough to say whether they find him favorable or unfavorable.

Reeves’ name ID across the state is much stronger, with just 11% of poll respondents indicating they didn’t know enough about Reeves to say whether they found him favorable or unfavorable.

A 61% majority of voters also said they did not know enough to render an opinion about former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who has said he is contemplating challenging Reeves in the August Republican primary. Waller challenged Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary, forcing a runoff despite entering the election late and facing a substantial fundraising disadvantage. The new poll showed 19% of voters find Waller favorable, while 18% find him unfavorable.

Head-to-head in a potential Republican primary, Reeves defeats Waller 52% to 29% among poll respondents. But independents, who often vote in Republican primaries, favor Reeves over Waller by only a 38%-37% margin.

In Mississippi, party primary elections are open to all voters. Notably, 29% of Democrats who were surveyed said they planned to vote in the Republican primary later this year.

When asked to choose between Reeves and “someone else,” African Americans who responded support the unknown candidate by a 78% to 11% margin, while white Mississippians support Reeves by a 45% to 44% margin.

In terms of the race against Presley, white voters support Reeves 63% to 21%, while Black voters support Presley 69% to 8%.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 821 registered voters was conducted Jan. 8-12 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points. Siena has an’A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1906

Published

3 hours ago

January 22, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-22 07:00:00

Jan. 22, 1906

Willa Beatrice Brown served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. Credit: Wikipedia

Pioneer aviator and civil rights activist Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.

While working in Chicago, she learned how to fly and became the first Black female to earn a commercial pilot’s license. A journalist said that when she entered the newsroom, “she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters suddenly went silent. … She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her husky voice as she announced, not asked, that she wanted to see me.”

In 1939, she married her former flight instructor, Cornelius Coffey, and they co-founded the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first Black-owned private flight training academy in the U.S.

She succeeded in convincing the U.S. Army Air Corps to let them train Black pilots. Hundreds of men and women trained under them, including nearly 200 future Tuskegee Airmen.

In 1942, she became the first Black officer in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. After World War II ended, she became the first Black woman to run for Congress. Although she lost, she remained politically active and worked in Chicago, teaching business and aeronautics.

After she retired, she served on an advisory board to the Federal Aviation Administration. She died in 1992. A historical marker in her hometown now recognizes her as the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license in the U.S., and Women in Aviation International named her one of the 100 most influential women in aviation and space.

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

Mississippi Stories Videos

Mississippi Stories: Michael May of Lazy Acres

Published

19 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – rlake – 2025-01-21 14:51:00

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey takes a trip to Lazy Acres. In 1980, Lazy Acres Christmas tree farm was founded in Chunky, Mississippi by Raburn and Shirley May. Twenty-one years later, Michael and Cathy May purchased Lazy Acres. Today, the farm has grown into a multi seasonal business offering a Bunny Patch at Easter, Pumpkin Patch in the fall, Christmas trees and an spectacular Christmas light show. It’s also a masterclass in family business entrepreneurship and agricultural tourism.

For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.

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

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1921

Published

1 day ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-21 07:00:00

Jan. 21, 1921

George Washington Carver Credit: Wikipedia

George Washington Carver became one of the first Black experts to testify before Congress.

His unlikely road to Washington began after his birth in Missouri, just before the Civil War ended. When he was a week old, he and his mother and his sister were kidnapped by night raiders. The slaveholder hired a man to track them down, but the only one the man could locate was George, and the slaveholder exchanged a race horse for George’s safe return. George and his brother were raised by the slaveholder and his wife.

The couple taught them to read and write. George wound up attending a school for Black children 10 miles away and later tried to attend Highland University in Kansas, only to get turned away because of the color of his skin. Then he attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before becoming the first Black student at what is now Iowa State University, where he received a Master’s of Science degree and became the first Black faculty member.

Booker T. Washington then invited Carver to head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he found new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and other crops.

In the past, segregation would have barred Carver’s testimony before Congress, but white peanut farmers, desperate to convince lawmakers about the need for a tariff on peanuts because of cheap Chinese imports, believed Carver could captivate them — and captivate he did, detailing how the nut could be transformed into candy, milk, livestock feed, even ink.

“I have just begun with the peanut,” he told lawmakers.

Impressed, they passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.

In addition to this work, Carver promoted racial harmony. From 1923 to 1933, he traveled to white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Time magazine referred to him as a “Black Leonardo,” and he died in 1943.

That same year, the George Washington Carver Monument complex, the first national park honoring a Black American, was founded in Joplin, Missouri.

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