What Went Down In The Mississippi Senate Runoff Election

Now we’ve got votes in from Warren Co. in southwest Mississippi and they show Espy at 57 percent, as compared with 48 percent on Election Day. It’s not a ton of the vote, but so far these numbers aren’t bad for him.

To be fair, nearly every Democrat who’s running a long-shot election likes to be compared to Doug Jones — it’s not the first time I heard the comparison this cycle. But when we’re looking at controversial comments from political candidates, the party’s response is so much more important than the meat of the comments. We saw that play out in last year’s Alabama Senate special, but we also saw it in a handful of 2012 Senate elections.

In the Alabama race last year, many Republicans, both in the state and nationally, distanced themselves from Moore. Except for Trump, who stuck with him. In contrast, Gov. Bryant has been a very strong defender of Hyde-Smith and the party has generally stuck with her. It would have really helped Espy, I think, if there was a sense that some establishment Mississippi Republicans were breaking with the party to back him. For instance, the Republican establishment broke with Kris Kobach in Kansas, and I think that helped Laura Kelly win there earlier this month.

I would caution against reading too much into these partial county results. Espy appears to be running well ahead of Democrats’ Nov. 6 performance, but we really don’t know if the precincts reporting are just the bluest parts of their respective counties. Wait until most of the county is in.

Cindy Hyde-Smith is not a particularly strong candidate. That said, she is probably going to be elected to the Senate. And her path to likely victory is worth examining closely as one possible avenue for electing more women — especially if congressional Republicans want to make that a priority. (Before the midterms, there were already significantly more Democratic women than Republican women in Congress, and the 2018 elections will make that gap even larger.)

First, Hyde-Smith was chosen in March by Gov. Phil Bryant to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Thad Cochran. Appointing Hyde-Smith, who was previously Mississippi’s agriculture and commerce commissioner, addressed one issue that scholars say women in both parties face: Women who probably could win often don’t run without first being recruited. I assume that Hyde-Smith had assured Bryant she wanted to run for the seat before he picked her, but Bryant’s appointment essentially made her a candidate.

Bryant and President Trump then took a second and very significant step — they strongly backed Hyde-Smith when she faced a Republican male opponent (in the first round of the state’s special election). GOP female candidates often struggle in primaries because voters tend to perceive female candidates as more liberal than male candidates. Hyde-Smith was particularly vulnerable to an attack from the right — she was a Democrat until 2010. But with the backing of influential conservatives, Hyde-Smith ran well ahead of tea party conservative Chris McDaniel on Election Day.

Now in the runoff against Democrat Mike Espy, Hyde-Smith is the favorite almost entirely because Mississippi leans very Republican in federal elections. And that’s another way that Republicans could get more women in their ranks: nominate women in states where the Republican will be the favorite, regardless of gender. U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is a prime example of this. She will join the Senate next year after winning in a very red state and earning Trump’s backing over other potential GOP rivals (in this case, the incumbent, Sen. Bob Corker, who was reconsidering his retirement but opted not to run after it became clear the president was allied with Blackburn).

DeSoto county in northwest Mississippi just reported a bunch of votes and they show … basically a tie there. Not great for Hyde-Smith in a county where Espy got just 34 percent on Election Day.

Everything that Perry said, plus this: People have made comparisons of this race to the Alabama special election in 2017 that saw Republican Roy Moore, another bad (allegedly criminal) candidate lose a supposedly safe seat to Democrat Doug Jones. I think in some of these southern states that have essentially had one party rule for a long time, the candidate quality can tend to be worse because they’re just not used to running in a competitive race. There’s a bit of a lack of discipline.

Democrats were hoping that McDaniel would beat out Hyde-Smith and turn this into a re-run of the 2017 Alabama Senate special. Not sure that would’ve happened, but McDaniel has a long list of problems.

The other reason we’re here, Perry, is because of Chris McDaniel. McDaniel nearly ousted Cochran in the GOP primary in 2014, ultimately coming up 2 points short in the runoff after narrowly finishing first in the initial primary.

Geoff gave the technical explanation of how we got here. But the real reason we are all watching this race closely is that Cindy Hyde-Smith turned a race she should have won by 15 points into one where she is still the favorite, but her victory is not totally assured. She was a surprisingly bad candidate. What person who grew up in Mississippi makes hanging jokes? Also, what happened earlier in other southern states matters this month, too. Victories by Brian Kemp in Georgia and probably Hyde-Smith in Mississippi are going to have Democrats really angry. The party has gotten much more liberal on racial issues, particularly white voters.

And how we got to tonight: Republican Rep. Thad Cochran won an open-seat Senate race in 1978. He then won re-election six times before resigning his seat in April 2018. Hyde-Smith was appointed to the seat and now seeks to win the remainder of the term for the seat, which will be up again in 2020.

We have votes!! Espy holds a 61 percent to 39 percent lead with 507 votes in, according to the New York Times. Not exactly much to go on, but it’s better than nothing.

Looking forward to someone turning into the “yo-yo club” moving back and forth between the major and minor debates. (And, are we bringing European soccer to a live blog about the Mississippi special election? You betcha.)

I think they’re going to have to come up with a promotion and relegation system, sort of like in European soccer.

Given the likely number of Democratic candidates, there will definitely be a kids’ debate too — do we cover that?

Clare, I agree. State of the Union and then the Democratic primary debates are the obvious times to liveblog. I’m not super-excited about debating the virtues of 12 very-similar Medicare-For-All plans.

I’d put money down that we’ll get a live-blog-worthy Mueller indictment before the State of the Union.

Would everyone get mad if I wished for “Iowa Caucuses” as the answer to Nate’s question?

Oh god, the fucking state of the Union, the most boring liveblog ever. (Please remember to visit, though.)

The State of the Union, Nate. I’m not totally sure we are getting a clear Mueller day that will be obvious to live blog.

The Georgia secretary of state runoff?

Taking bets: What will be the next political event that we liveblog?

In Mississippi, the majority of Democratic votes have historically come from the many heavily African-American counties in the western part of the state. Hinds County (home of Jackson, the state capital) is the biggest of these counties, but the state’s Mississippi Delta region is home to a number of other majority-black, heavily Democratic counties. The eastern half of the state is much whiter, and, unsurprisingly, these counties lean Republican. The biggest sources of Republican votes are Rankin County (the Jackson suburbs), DeSoto County (outside Memphis) and Harrison County (Biloxi). All are majority-white.

It’s not uncommon for voters to decipher between federal candidates (e.g. Congress) and state-level candidates (e.g. governor, attorney general, etc.). The last time Mississippi sent a Democrat to the Senate was in 1982, when John C. Stennis was re-elected. The Washington Post wrote in his 1995 obituary that Stennis first won his seat in 1947 in “a special election to the Senate as a moderate segregationist alternative to two white supremacist candidates.” It was a different era of the Democratic party.

Perry, Hood faces an unusual additional hurdle in that gubernatorial race: In order to win a state election in Mississippi, a candidate has to carry a majority of state House districts, or else the state House picks the winner. That will be extremely difficult for Hood even if he manages to win a majority of the actual vote.

There actually is a prominent statewide Democrat in Mississippi: Jim Hood. He is currently the attorney general and also white, which I think is relevant to say in the context of this racially polarized state. In 2015, he got 55 percent of the vote and he is running for governor next year, which should be easier than a Senate race. Governors’ races tend to have less partisan voting than Senate or presidential ones. And 2019 is not a national election year. On the other hand, my guess is Trump will campaign for whomever the GOP nominee is. (Gov. Phil Bryant is term-limited.)

In case you needed a needle fix:

Regarding that Change Research poll — it’s probably worth noting that Change Research’s polling wasn’t too good in the primary for this race, showing McDaniel very close to Hyde-Smith when he finished nowhere near her.

This is the third statewide election this month in the South in which a white Republican candidate accused of anti-black rhetoric or tactics is up against a black Democrat. I expect that Cindy Hyde-Smith will prevail over Mike Espy, just as Brian Kemp won over Stacey Abrams in Georgia’s gubernatorial election and Ron DeSantis defeated Andrew Gillum in the Florida governor race. What can we learn about race and elections from these contests? Two things I think:

1. Black candidates are losing, but probably not because of race. If Espy loses today’s Senate runoff in Mississippi, the most obvious explanation will not be that white voters like that Hyde-Smith takes pictures in Confederate garb. Nor will it be that white Southerners won’t vote for a black candidate. The most obvious reason that Espy is an underdog is that his state leans conservative. That’s probably the main reason for Abrams’s loss on Election Day, too. Gillum got about the same number of votes statewide and in each key region of the state as incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, who is white (he also lost). Abrams actually outperformed expectations in her very narrow defeat.
2. Democrats are willing to nominate black candidates; Republicans are choosing more racially conservative white ones. Democrats rely heavily on black voters throughout the South but have traditionally avoided nominating black candidates for key offices, viewing them as “unelectable.” But Abrams’s performance in particular contradicts that conventional wisdom. I think the Democratic Party will be more willing to back black candidates in key races in the South in the future. But in DeSantis, Hyde-Smith and Kemp, Republicans chose candidates who are unlikely to attempt to appeal to the black communities in those states. The more racially moderate styles of, say, outgoing Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who made criminal justice reform a big part of his agenda, may be sidelined in the future for more Trumpy Republicans in the South.

Perry, I wouldn’t count out Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse being a possible swing voter. He’ll be one of most outspoken Trump critics in the Senate next year (among Republicans, that is).

Two public polls of Mississippi have been conducted since the first round of voting on Nov. 6. A JMC Analytics/Bold Blue Campaigns poll sponsored by conservative blog RRH Elections found Hyde-Smith leading Espy 54 percent to 44 percent. A Change Research poll was better, but still not great, for Espy: Hyde-Smith 51 percent, Espy 46 percent.

If Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith were to lose Mississippi’s Senate runoff on Tuesday, after the two Republican candidates combined to win a sizable majority of the initial vote on Nov. 6, that would be an unprecedented turn of events.

As I wrote earlier today:

“In the first round, Republicans Hyde-Smith and Chris McDaniel combined for a bit less than 58 percent of the vote, while Democrat Mike Espy and one other candidate from his party together won a little more than 42 percent. For Espy to win, the runoff vote has to swing more than 15 points more Democratic than the initial vote margin.”

But if we look at the five Senate elections since 1990 where an initial round of voting was held on the national Election Day and two candidates advanced to a runoff, no race has ever shifted that much in either party’s direction.

As Nathaniel Rakich wrote in our preview of the Mississippi runoff, Espy needs the runoff electorate to substantially differ from the electorate that turned out to vote on Nov. 6. He’ll need high turnout among black voters, who lean very Democratic, plus less engagement from white voters, who lean strongly Republican in Mississippi.

Reader question

Answer

If Espy wins, it will be Democrats 48, Republicans 52 in the Senate. Kind of like it is now. (The current split is 51-49 GOP.) But the 52 Republicans will be more conservative/allied with Trump than the current caucus. Bob Corker will be replaced by Marsha Blackburn, for example. That 52 includes people like Josh Hawley in Missouri, Mike Braun in Indiana and Rick Scott in Florida who really owe their seats to Trump in a certain way. With 52, the swing voter might be, Utah’s new senator … you might have heard of him: Mitt Romney.

I think Castro is interesting insofar as there’s a surprising dearth of Hispanic candidates in the Democratic field. He may not be one of the most likely winners, but he has an opportunity to build a constituency and play a kingmaker role. He’ll also probably spend a lot of time in Nevada.

Newt Gingrich in 2012 I think would count, Clare, although he was speaker.

Since we’re talking about Texas pols and not Mississippi yet, it strikes me that O’Rourke’s entrance into the race and (let’s presume) his serious contention is remarkable because he’ll be a (former) member of the House and not a senator/governor/Cabinet secretary. When was the last time that happened!? The serious contention part, I mean … no offense Dennis Kucinich.

Totally agree with Nathaniel. If we decide that it’s huge news every time a Democrat announces they’re considering running for President this year, we won’t have room to talk about much else. But in the world of “there are no coincidences in politics,” I wonder how much Castro’s announcement has to do with reports that fellow Texan Beto O’Rourke is considering running.

Senate all the way, Micah. Espy doesn’t have great odds tonight, but they’re better than Castro’s odds of becoming president. (That’s not a knock on Castro — it just reflects how crowded the Democratic field is going to be.)

Which is the bigger story, the Castro news or tonight’s Senate runoff?

Yeah, the Castro news isn’t surprising in my view — he has taken a number of steps that hinted at a candidacy. But it should give you some indication of enthusiasm for him that people are literally begging another politician from his state to run for president (I’m speaking of Beto, of course.)

Spending Valentine’s Day dissecting the field of Democratic primary candidates sounds pretty good to me, actually.

I don’t have any specific reaction to Castro, but it sure seems like the invisible primary (i) isn’t that invisible and (ii) is happening right NOW as candidates try to lock up key donors, staff talent, media attention, etc. It wouldn’t surprise me if we knew quite a bit about how the 2020 Democratic field is shaping up by, say, Valentine’s Day.

Anyone have thoughts on Julián Castro telling MSNBC just a little while ago that he is “likely” to run for president in 2020?

What does turnout look like in runoffs for the Senate after the general election? Well, as I’ve previously written, there aren’t many cases to study: Since 1990, there have only been five Senate runoffs where the initial election happened on the regular November election date — that is, races with a similar format to tonight’s Mississippi contest. But as shown in the table below, turnout among the voting-eligible population tends to drop off in the runoff compared to the initial election. Turnout fell much more sharply in presidential cycles than in midterm years, but it also had farther to fall. After all, presidential contests have higher turnout than midterms.

But the previous two midterm runoffs had a higher turnout rate than the runoffs in the three presidential cycles. Now, competitiveness may have played a role — Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu won re-election by just 3 percentage points in the 2002 Louisiana runoff, for instance. But Georgia’s 1992 runoff was quite close — Republican Paul Coverdell defeated Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler by just 1 point — yet its turnout was very low. State-to-state and year-to-year differences are probably only part of the story — again, this is a very small sample of races, and the only two prior midterm cases were from the same state and involved the same incumbent senator.

So what does this tell us about Mississippi’s runoff? Maybe there is a small decline in turnout relative to the first round of voting, partly because the contest appears to be competitive. The runoff has received ample attention in the media, and we’re coming off of the highest midterm turnout in modern times, so maybe we see continued high voter engagement. But it’s also possible that Mississippi, a traditionally low-turnout state — it had the lowest average midterm turnout from 1982 to 2014 — could revert to the mean and we see a substantial decline. Or perhaps it will split the difference! We’ll just have to wait and see this evening.

When you’re watching an election in real time, it’s important to be aware of where the returns are coming from so you can judge whether an early lead is likely to hold up. So to help you see where Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy can expect their votes to come from, we’ve put together a table of how each county voted in the first round, showing what share voted for one of the two Republicans and what share voted for one of the two Democrats.

In theory, Espy must do at least 8 percentage points better than the combined Democratic total in each county in order to be on pace to receive 50 percent statewide. But that sort of benchmark, which we’ve offered up to you in previous special elections, may not be very useful in such a polarized state. If Espy does win, it will probably be because he ran up the score in blue counties and depressed turnout in red ones, not because he improved by equal measures across Mississippi.

In other words, voter turnout will matter. If Espy receives, say, 90 percent as many votes as were cast for Democrats in the first round but Hyde-Smith receives only 65 percent as many votes as were cast for Republicans, Espy wins. Use our table to keep track of how many more or fewer raw votes Hyde-Smith and Espy receive than their parties did in the first round of voting on Nov. 6.

It’s the last election of 2018!!! The Mississippi Senate runoff.

We’ll be following along to see if the Republican candidate and appointed incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith can hold onto her seat or if Democratic candidate Mike Espy can pull off a historic upset. (Neither secured a majority on Election Day.)

In a state as red as Mississippi, whether the Republican candidate was going to win wouldn’t normally even be a question. But Hyde-Smith has run a pretty bad campaign, and although she should still clinch a victory, there is some evidence that the race has tightened in recent weeks.

We’ll have our crew of elections diehards on hand — FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, Perry Bacon, Clare Malone, Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, as well as friend-of-the-site Leah Askarinam from Inside Elections — to talk over the returns as they come in.

But we’ll also debate anything and everything politics-related! Have a question? Send ’em to @538politics, and we’ll try to answer them on the live blog. Polls in Mississippi close in about 30 minutes.