MS Megathread: Hyde-Smith wins by 8

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All of yall are wrong. Cochran should stay in the Senate, and if he's still alive, run again in 2020.

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Mamacita's running.

He'll probably win. Adultery is no longer a sin in the eyes of the "values voters."

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Mamacita's running.

He'll probably win. Adultery is no longer a sin in the eyes of the "values voters."

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Doubtful.  Wicker has a lot more organization/money than Thad did at the same point in 2014.  Plus, McDaniel is old news and has pretty high unfavorables.  I think Wicker will wipe the floor, somewhere around 60% in the primary. 

But Wicker won't have thousands of Democrats voting for Gene Taylor in the CD4 Republican primary also voting for him like Thad had.

And the stupid flag issue really fires up the deplorables.

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Is this thread for this year's MS Senate election too?

David Baria is in for Democrats. Could be good insurance if McDaniels pulls through and screws over Republicans.

That's someone who could plausibly beat McDaniel, if his scandals take center stage and people care. Very Doug Jones-esque

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Likely R, come on guys.

Presley vs. McDaniel runoff is a tossup, but almost any plausible other matchup is Safe R.

Remember that Evangelicals have 1984'd themselves and no longer think adultery is bad.

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Something I thought of: Phil can't appoint Trent Kelly or Steven Palazzo without handing their House seats to their Democratic challengers, since the filing deadline has passed, so it almost certainly won't be one of them appointed. My money is on Delbert Hosemann.

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Also if nobody gets 50% in November, it goes to a runoff 3 weeks later, so it's possible control of the U.S. Senate will be at stake.

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Politico is reporting that McConnell wants Bryant to appoint himself.

McConnell is so terrible at optics lol

If Bryant appoints himself, he's a lock to win in November. That's all McConnell cares about.

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Politico is reporting that McConnell wants Bryant to appoint himself.

McConnell is so terrible at optics lol

If Bryant appoints himself, he's a lock to win in November. That's all McConnell cares about.

Or he could get Moore'd.  McConnell would be wise to shut up.

That wouldn't happen to Bryant. He's popular with the Establishment and the Deplorables.

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Mike Espy (former Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture) in.

http://m.msnewsnow.com/story/37652112/mike-espy-to-run-for-thad-cochrans-senate-seat

There was some speculation about him switching parties about 10 years ago, but I assume he's running as a Blue Dog.

I would rate McDaniel vs. Espy as Likely R right now.

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Republican wet dream scenario:
Bryant appoints himself, Reeves, or Hosemann. Neither the appointee nor Wicker faces any serious competition and both win by double digits in November.

Bannonist wet dream scenario:
McDaniel stays in the regular election and takes out Wicker and manages to nationalize the race and beat Baria in November. Michael Watson or Melanie Sojourner run against the appointee, advance to the runoff with a Democrat, and nationalize the race enough to pull it out in late November.

Democratic wet dream scenario:
The above happens, except Baria and Presley both win.

#2 and #3 are far less likely than #1.

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Here's a map I put together of what a super competitive 4-way race might look like. This assumes that all 4 candidates are taken seriously, and that the national environment and/or personal qualities allow for the Democratic candidates to perform very well.

This is just for fun - I didn't spend all that much time on it. I fed some numbers from recent elections into a spreadsheet, and this is what came out. I didn't closely check the results, so I don't doubt there are oddities/improbabilities.

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A college professor of mine said back in 2007 that Espy is the only African-American who could have plausibly won a statewide election in Mississippi, but that he'd probably missed his window by 2007. 11 years later, does the electorate even remember who he is?

There were also rumors about 10 years ago that he might switch parties. He endorsed Barbour for reelection in 2007 and apparently really wanted to be appointed to Trent Lott's seat, but I haven't heard anyone referring to him as anything other than a Democrat for this race.

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It's pretty unlikely that we see an R vs R runoff, assuming Democrats don't have more than 2 "major" candidates. I mean, I guess it would be 27-27-23-23 or something, but that would have to line up exactly right.

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Welp, looks like it's Cindy Hyde-Smith.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/665443?unlock=E1522ZS6XHETSKT1

Likely R -> Lean R

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And Mississippi Dems have to incentive to bail out Republicans this time by voting for Hyde-Smith.

McDaniel is personally viler than Trump and politically viler than Cruz. In the super unlikely R-R runoff scenario, McDaniel gets destroyed.

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Andy Taggart openly hinting on Twitter that he's going to jump in.

3 legitimate Republicans puts a D-D runoff in plausible territory. If we get a 4th, it becomes ... likely?

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Andy Taggart openly hinting on Twitter that he's going to jump in.

3 legitimate Republicans puts a D-D runoff in plausible territory. If we get a 4th, it becomes ... likely?

No, no it does not. Democrats have gotten an average of something like 35% of the vote in recent statewide elections. Even if the 2 Democrats and 3 Republicans split the vote perfectly (which is EXTREMELY unlikely) the Republicans would each get around 22% and the Democrats would get around 17.5%. And the far more likely scenario is that the appointed Senator + McDaniels vacuum up the vast majority of the Republican vote, which makes D vs. D virtually inconceivable no matter how many Republicans run.

A second credible Democrat getting in would make an R v. R matchup waaaaaaaaaaaay more likely than a D vs. D matchup.

35% is a particularly bad performance for a Democrat in Mississippi, not a baseline. 35% is what the random no-name no-money black candidates who sometimes win the nomination because no one else runs get.

Presley and Espy would easily combine into the mid 40s, not the mid 30s.

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He's liked several Twitter pleas for him to run. I don't think you do that if you really aren't interested.

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Cindy Hyde-Smith can and will beat back Chris McDaniel and ultimately win the seat. From my sources, she’s well liked and intelligent. She has all the credentials needed for a race in MS: religious, conservative, and relatable. Smith is a tried and true conservative who served MS well. Chris McDaniel is an opportunistic pseudo-conservative who cares about himself more than the country.

Everything you said is true, except I'm not 100% sure on the first sentence. Especially if Andy Taggart stupidly butts into the race and takes Jackson area Establishment Republican votes away from her.

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Cindy Hyde-Smith can and will beat back Chris McDaniel and ultimately win the seat. From my sources, she’s well liked and intelligent. She has all the credentials needed for a race in MS: religious, conservative, and relatable. Smith is a tried and true conservative who served MS well. Chris McDaniel is an opportunistic pseudo-conservative who cares about himself more than the country.

Everything you said is true, except I'm not 100% sure on the first sentence. Especially if Andy Taggart stupidly butts into the race and takes Jackson area Establishment Republican votes away from her.

Smith will get her base from rural voters. She’s from a farming community. McDaniel is the one from Jackson.

McDaniel is from Laurel in South Mississippi, which is only a little bit bigger than Brookhaven. McDaniel will do very well in rural areas in the Southern part of the state, and Hyde-smith should win Madison and Rankin counties if they're the only 2 credible Republican candidates.

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Elephant in the room: Are we sure that Presley would even make it to the runoff if he runs? Espy will probably be siphoning off a lot of the black vote.

No, I'm not sure of it. I think Espy will get more votes from Clinton-voters than Presley will. To make the runoff with Espy in the race, Presley will have to get a lot of votes in the Northeastern region of the state who didn't vote Hillary. To his credit, he tends to do that in his Public Service Commissioner races:


However, there's no guarantee that this will translate into success in a U.S. Senate race. But it does help that his Republican opponents are both from South Mississippi (and the other potential one is a rich #NeverTrump lawyer from Madison).

In the map I posted a few days ago, I got Presley into the mid-20s by giving him halfway between his typical level and Hillary's % in the Northern part of the state, and just the white Hillary voters + 5% of the Trump vote in the rest of the state.

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Cindy Hyde-Smith voted in the Democratic Presidential primary in 2008. And didn’t endorse McCain that year against the Muslim terrorist.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/03/21/mississippi-senator-cindy-hyde-smith-conservative-enough/443847002/

Meh, McDaniel voted in Democratic primaries back then too. They probably were just trying to have a say in who was elected sheriff or some other local race that was still all "Democratic"

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I should clarify that it's more of a suspicion that Presley would  greatly outperform Hillary in the Northeast, rather than a prediction, since I don't have any evidence to back it up.

There are way too many unknowns in the race to make a real prediction right now, even if we knew the candidates, but I do think that any additional credible Republican who jumps in only hurts CHS and helps McDaniel and any Democrat.

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Roflmao

Republican Andy Taggart eyeing challenge to Cindy Hyde-Smith for Cochran's Senate seat

So, so, so dumb. A rich #NeverTrump lawyer from Madison is going to draw away votes that CHS needs without hurting McDaniel much at all.

I guess he thinks there are a lot of voters out there who would conceivably vote for some establishment Republican hypothetically, but will default to McDaniel over CHS. He's probably right about that, but he's not exactly a good choice to win those people over.

His logic might work in a Republican primary where the top 2 Republicans go to a runoff for the nomination, but all he'll do in this race is guarantee that neither he nor CHS makes the runoff.