That's A Wrap
With the AP and several other outlets having called Mississippi’s U.S. Senate runoff for Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, we’re calling it a night, too.
Going into Tuesday there was speculation that the race would be competitive, and early in the evening it did seem as if Espy stood a chance to pull off the upset win. He was outperforming in some counties that Democrats hadn’t fared as well in the first round of voting. Ultimately, Espy did outperform his Nov. 6 marks, but not by enough to overcome the political landscape of a state as red as Mississippi (at least in statewide elections).
Mississippi leans about 15 points more Republicans than the country overall, according to our partisan lean metric. And Hyde-Smith is likely to end up winning by a margin in the high single digits — a sign that her campaign, which was pretty poorly run and dogged by controversies, cost her some votes. A less controversial GOP candidate likely would have won by more.
Republicans will now enter the 116th Congress with a 53-47 majority.
The other big takeaway is the various racial controversies around Hyde-Smith probably did hurt her. A strong GOP candidate likely would have won by more. But they did not hurt her that much.
And the Democratic overperformance might bode well for the party in next week’s runoff for Georgia secretary of state. (Laugh if you want at the obscurity of my election obsession, but it’s an important office with the power to administer elections — remember all the liberal complaints about Brian Kemp this fall?)
Worth noting that turnout in Mississippi seems on pace to not drop that much from the initial election on Nov. 6. Based on the turnout change in the counties that are 100 percent in, turnout as a share of the voting-eligible population might drop from 43 percent three weeks ago to about 40 percent today. That may reflect some staying power for the high-turnout midterm environment we just experienced, the ostensible competitiveness of the race and the heavy focus on the race in the media.
The AP has called the runoff for Hyde-Smith, more or less officially putting a cap on the evening. Hyde-Smith currently leads 56 percent to 44 percent, although the remaining uncounted vote figures to be Democratic-leaning. This should still be a single-digit race — and a solid Democratic overperformance — when all is said and done.
Yep, we knew that this race would be closer than a typical federal, statewide Mississippi race. But that doesn’t mean that Democrats can win without a pretty extraordinary set of circumstances. (If Roy Moore moves to Mississippi, we’ll have to revisit Democratic chances, for example.)
Well, it looks like no surprise upsets tonight. Hyde-Smith wins, though she underperformed the GOP’s initial vote on Nov. 6, substantially in some places. But Mississippi is a red state, and even a runoff election couldn’t change that.
Some networks have begun to call this race, and we see no reason to disagree. A really underwhelming result for Hyde-Smith, who will probably finish ahead by mid-to-high single digits, but Mississippi is Mississippi, and the GOP will enter next year with a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, barring something really surprising.
I don’t think Biden or Sanders will take the VP slot, so I guess it’s up to Beto or a western governor if someone other than a white dude is the Democratic nominee in 2020.
Fine, 91 percent.
Like 90 percent. If a white dude is nominated, no way he picks another white dude. And if a non-white-dude is nominated, a white dude is the safest VP pick.
Here’s another, related question. What are the chances that the Democratic presidential ticket will have exactly one (not 2 and not 0) white dude? I say like ~75 percent.
But Nate, I think 2016 hurt the pick-a-white-man-as-VP conventional wisdom.
OMG, you are all so trendy!
Good-looking-young-ish-white-dude-who-the-base-will-like feels like a classic VP pick, Clare.
Wow, so bullish on Beto.
I would have said Beto. But I’ll go with Mr. Castro instead.
Biden-Beto — you cannot escape the alliteration. But if Beto’s taken, I’ll go for Kamala Harris.
Vice President Cheri Bustos?
So a vice presidential draft?
I pick Beto.
How about this instead: Everyone gets one pick, and your goal is to pick the Democratic candidate who will finish second in the 2020 Democratic primary.
You guys want to do a 2020 Lightning Draft?
While Hyde-Smith has run significantly behind the GOP’s performance in the initial vote, she actually ran ahead in George County in the southeastern corner near Biloxi (a place Trump campaigned yesterday). It’s now 100 percent reporting and Hyde-Smith won it by 70 points, 85 to 15 percent, after the GOP carried it by 67 points in the first round.
With 100 percent reporting in DeSoto, Hyde-Smith wins it 59 percent to 41 percent, down from the 65-35 Republican advantage on Nov. 6. GOP turnout was 78 percent of Round 1, while Democratic turnout was 99 percent. It looks like Espy is holding on to all his votes from Round 1, while plenty of McDaniel voters didn’t show up for Hyde-Smith tonight. But that’s OK for Hyde-Smith, since she got more votes than Espy in Round 1 anyway.
This race also doesn’t seem to have revealed all too much about politics changing in Mississippi. You could argue that Beto O’Rourke’s and Stacey Abrams’s over-performances previewed the beginning of Texas and Georgia turning purple — and, by generating voter enthusiasm and turnout that resulted in traditionally Republican suburban House districts flipping. But the statewide implications of Espy’s over-performance are less clear. We’ve learned that Mississippi is still very Republican, but I think we already knew that.
Two, Micah. Not including pre-Nov. 6 polling.
Nate, wasn’t there like one poll?
If the Espometer is right and Hyde-Smith wins my mid-high single digits, it will be another very good night for the polls, which had her winning by 7.5 points on average.
No question that Espy’s chances are looking slim, but he’s certainly outperformed the Nov. 6 Democratic vote all over the state. In Lowndes County (Columbus, Miss.) on the Alabama border, the GOP won it by 6 points three weeks ago, but with almost 86 percent of precincts in, Espy leads it by 20 points.
I mean, Nate, it’s less of an anticlimax than I was expecting at the beginning of the night, when I thought we’d all go home by 9 o’clock.
This is starting to feel like an anticlimax.
After an underwhelming performance in DeSoto County, Hyde-Smith is doing much better in Rankin County (the Jackson suburbs). She leads there 73 percent to 27 percent with 58 percent of precincts reporting.
Lee County, the home of Tupelo, hosted the president while he stumped on behalf of Hyde-Smith yesterday. About half of its precincts have reported and she leads by 33 points, similar to the GOP’s 35-point edge in the Nov. 6 vote.
The overall Espometer has fallen back down to 5.6 points. An alternative version of the Espometer based only on counties that are at least 80 percent complete with their vote count is slightly better for Espy at 6.5 points. Both are shy of what he’d need, though, barring differentially high turnout in blue counties.
Nate, one might think Chris McDaniel would want to take another shot at the Senate after falling just short in 2014 and then losing again three weeks ago. But it seems he has his eye on running for governor next year.
Small counties can sometimes produce odd results, and tiny Benton County (1,901 votes) on the Tennessee border is a good example. On Nov. 6, it went for the GOP candidates in the special election by 17 points. But Espy just won it by 3 points, a 20-point swing. But in the process, it matched 86 percent of the first-round Democratic vote but only 58 percent of the Nov. 6 Republican vote.
One of my other big takeways from tonight — whether it’s a narrow Espy or (more likely) a modest Hyde-Smith win, is that Republicans probably ought to primary her. Republicans have three current U.S. Reps in Mississippi, all in completely safe districts, plus Gov. Bryant, who is term-limited.
Coahoma County is now 100 percent reporting as well, and as a majority-black county, it could suggest that Espy succeeded in boosting African-American turnout. Espy won here 76 percent to 24 percent. The raw number of Democratic votes is 106 percent of what it was in Round 1; the raw number of Republican votes is 81 percent of what it was in Round 1.
Amite Co. has an Espometer reading of 6.3, which is pretty consistent with his numbers statewide.
Hyde-Smith’s 2,727 votes in Amite County come out to 83 percent of the votes cast for Republicans there on Nov. 6. Espy’s 1,952 votes in Amite are 98 percent of the total votes cast for Democrats there on Nov. 6.
When we’re looking back at this race, it’ll be important to take into account Espy’s existing popularity and name recognition in Mississippi. He’s a known figure in the state, which can make it harder for attacks from the GOP to stick. Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith had been attacked during the general election by another Republican candidate, and may have entered the runoff a bit bruised. It’s not a neat narrative, but I think there are a bunch of factors that have made this race competitive that have little to do with the national environment.
Clare, I’m not sure that a Democratic win would tell us all that much about 2020, other than that the GOP needs to stop nominating shitty candidates and that the Democrats ought to be running decent candidates everywhere just in case the GOP nominates shitty candidates.
Gillum was my sleeper pick in my first 2020 presidential draft back in October, but I almost think Abrams, given the potential salience on the left of the issue of voter suppression, has a higher ceiling in star power — right now at least.
OK, so maybe in the interest of going 30,000 feet up, what do we think an Espy win tonight would say about, say, 2020? Does it lend strength to candidates who lost in the south like Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum? (Who, I would say if we’re talking about candidates that lost well, ought to be discussed as much as Beto O’Rourke is).
Speaking of which, Geoffrey, Amite County now has 100 percent of precincts reporting. Let’s look at turnout …
Nathaniel, the more things change, the more they stay the same, amirite?