MS Megathread: Hyde-Smith wins by 8

[NewYorkExpress]

You know it's a tense Southern Election when this happens.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/11/26/nooses-found-hanging-trees-trees-state-capitol-jackson/2115227002/

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[Comrade Funk]

Who are the 6% who voted for McDaniel and are now supporting Espy?

Strategic Espy voters perhaps?

[I Can Now Die Happy]

Weren't you pretending to be a Democrat before the election?

??

[GeorgiaModerate]

Weren't you pretending to be a Democrat before the election?

??

It's possible I may have you confused with another poster.

[Brittain33]

Weren't you pretending to be a Democrat before the election?

??

It's possible I may have you confused with another poster.

No, you aren't mixing him up. A few weeks before the election he switched from "I'm a progressive and I want Republicans to win to push the Dem party to the left" to just cheering on Republicans.

[I Can Now Die Happy]

Weren't you pretending to be a Democrat before the election?

??

It's possible I may have you confused with another poster.

No, you aren't mixing him up. A few weeks before the election he switched from "I'm a progressive and I want Republicans to win to push the Dem party to the left" to just cheering on Republicans.

Fake News.

Anyway, anyone else gonna watch the results come in live tomorrow night? MS usually reports the D areas in first right?

[henster]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

[Rookie Yinzer]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

[henster]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

Well black voters came out for Doug Jones and Smith's racism would bring black voters out anyways.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

Well black voters came out for Doug Jones and Smith's racism would bring black voters out anyways.

They really didn't. Jones got less votes than Hillary and turnout in black precincts was down a lot. It's just rural white precincts were down way more.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Weren't you pretending to be a Democrat before the election?

??

It's possible I may have you confused with another poster.

No, you aren't mixing him up. A few weeks before the election he switched from "I'm a progressive and I want Republicans to win to push the Dem party to the left" to just cheering on Republicans.

Fake News.

Anyway, anyone else gonna watch the results come in live tomorrow night? MS usually reports the D areas in first right?

Excuse me while I whip this out:

Stop trying to make "#walkaway" happen people, please.

The #walkaway phenomenon is a real thing. Keep in mind that it's more of a slow but steady trickle over a span of many years, not a sudden jump since 2016. I started losing faith in the Democratic Party around 2012, but not as much for the American Left. Certain shifts in the American Left that started in 2014 was what killed it all, though I definitely wasn't going to embrace the Republicans at that time either, but I did consider myself libertarian-ish. Trump in 2016 and the left's behavior since then was what really put the nail in the coffin, but I'm not quite ready to be a full fledged Republican unless they stop being the party of Reagan (the mythologized version), George W. Bush, Rick Santorum, etc.

If you take a look at the #walkaway facebook group, you'll see varying stories from all sorts of people. Those people aren't necessarily going to vote for the Republicans on November 6, but they won't give the Democrats votes either. Arguably, you won't need them if turnout for the Democrats remains high and turnout for the Republicans has been mediocre as it has been for these past few special elections. That doesn't mean that people aren't abandoning the Democratic Party and the left, it just means that a greater portion of the people who vote in these elections are energized progressives and Democrats, while an even larger number of people who *might* have voted for the Republican stayed home for varying reasons. Sometimes the reason is as sad as simply not knowing that there was an election that day.

Anyway, I don't see what's so bad about critiquing one's parents and highlighting their conduct as indicative of the country's current polarized and vicious nature,  if they went so out of their way to slight your political career.

[ON Progressive]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

Well black voters came out for Doug Jones and Smith's racism would bring black voters out anyways.

They really didn't. Jones got less votes than Hillary and turnout in black precincts was down a lot. It's just rural white precincts were down way more.

Actually, not necessarily. I can't find any data on statewide, but at least in Jefferson County (Birmingham), mostly black precincts averaged 80% of 2016 turnout which is very impressive for a special election just weeks before Christmas. Especially since those kind of elections historically have atrocious black turnout in the South.

[Donnie]

Come on people, lets be serious. Obama got 43% in 2008 and 43.8% in 2012.
If Espy ends up in single digits, it would be the pinnacle for him.
I predict Hyde Smith wins by 12 (56-44).

[Rookie Yinzer]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

Well black voters came out for Doug Jones and Smith's racism would bring black voters out anyways.

LOL. The other candidate being racist does not get black people to the polls. If it did Hillary would be President.

Anyway, Doug Jones prosecuted the individuals responsible for killing the four girls in the Birmingham Church Bombing, he embraced politicians popular in the black community like Joe Biden and Cory Booker, and let President Obama do a robo call for him. Presley doesn’t have that hook of prosecuting Klan members nor would he have embraced prominent national Democrats popular among the black community. He would have been mealy mouthed on race and other sensitive topics, bombing with black turnout and  failing to move the needle with whites who are exponentially more partisan in federal contests.

[IceSpear]

Who are the 6% who voted for McDaniel and are now supporting Espy?

Nonexistent. Why take a Change Research "poll" seriously when we have a much better poll plus common sense? These are the people that said Wicker would win by 8 a day before the election then he won by 19.

[Brittain33]

As a public service, I just read through the last 3 pages of posts and confirmed that no one in that time period has claimed they believe Espy has any chance of winning. Lest anyone feel the need to debunk that belief. 

[_]

Only chance that Espy could've won is if Trump didn't show up, or if his visit somehow does nothing to boost white turnout.  It's going to be like within 5 or so in my view. Espy can't get over the hump unless there's an insane black turnout that nobody is seeing.

[The Mikado]

I'm thinking 55-45, give or take two points. Hyde-Smith will underperform due to general lack of interest in the race plus heightened black turnout, but "underperform" in the sense that she might win by 11 rather than 16.

[NOVA Green]

I feel like Espy wasn't the best candidate here, this could've been a real race with Presley.

Black voters wouldn't have come out for him. Mississippi is unwinnable for federal office with its current electorate makeup.

Well black voters came out for Doug Jones and Smith's racism would bring black voters out anyways.

They really didn't. Jones got less votes than Hillary and turnout in black precincts was down a lot. It's just rural white precincts were down way more.

Actually, not necessarily. I can't find any data on statewide, but at least in Jefferson County (Birmingham), mostly black precincts averaged 80% of 2016 turnout which is very impressive for a special election just weeks before Christmas. Especially since those kind of elections historically have atrocious black turnout in the South.

This....

Now, I didn't go through a large majority of the Counties in Alabama, simply because precinct level data wasn't available for the entire State for quite some time.

Obviously, I started focusing on other projects a few months after the election, however just discovered that we do now have a comprehensive official precinct level data-set for the Alabama 2017 Special Election, which I just downloaded....

https://www.sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/voter/election-data

I did take a detailed look at those Counties with precinct level results available after the election including: Jefferson, Baldwin, Calhoun, Mobile, Lee, and Morgan Counties (Also on my NoVA GREEN thread for anyone that doesn't want to sift through multiple pages)....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=279603.msg5964692#msg5964692

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=288717.msg6136231#msg6136231

So based upon the precinct level data I looked at for these six Counties, you are absolutely correct about extraordinary turnout within Jefferson County (And not just the City of Birmingham), although I didn't publish all of my findings on Atlas by precinct compare/contrast within the City....

It *is* true as DTC noted that Black Turnout in AA precincts elsewhere was down compared to the 2016 GE significantly, and PUB turnout even much lower in many places, but still my research didn't even delve into Turnout in places in the "Black Belt" such as Macon, Dallas, and Montgomery counties, or rural counties that are "White Plurality" with large Black populations....

One of the key questions to look at there, would be to compare AA turnout in heavily rural Counties in AL vs... turnout in heavily AA rural Counties in MS along the Delta....

One of the key aspects of Jones win in AL, had to do not only with White Voters staying homes, but also significant swings among White voters in what is one of the Whitest States of the Old Confederacy....

1.) These swings didn't just occur in the heavily Anglo Educated Upper-Middle-Class 'Burbs of Birmingham.

2.) These swings also occurred among educated White workers in the Auto / Aerospace Manufacturing Cities in Alabama.

3.) We also saw significant swings among Catholic Voters in Southern Alabama around Mobile and the Gulf Coast in General.

4.) We saw significant swings among Anglo Gulf Coast retirees not residing with the City of Mobile.

5.) We saw significant swings even among heavily PUB Anglo voters in Auburn, and likely Tuscaloosa.

6.) We saw significant swings among "Ancestral DEMs" in Northern 'Bama, where Gore did quite well way back in 2000....

Now, how much of this is transferable to Mississippi?

Honestly we don't have nearly as advanced a manufacturing sector as Alabama did in 2017....

We don't have nearly as many educated upper-income Anglo 'Burbs, like we did in Alabama...

We don't really have anything equivalent to the whole Northern 'Bama TVA History in MS, nor relatively recent histories of White folks up in those "Piney Woods" voting DEM for Federal Elections...

Still, what we do have in Mississippi is a much larger population of brothers and sisters than in Alabama, where the potential prospect of electing the first African-American Senator in the State since reconstruction, against a Republican Candidate who appears determined to represent the backwards and dark Mississippi of the past of the decades of White Supremacist Rule and even "joking" about the Jim Crow lynching era which artists like Billie Holiday covered in powerful songs such as the song "Strange Fruit" way back in 1939.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit

Mississippi under the post Civil Rights Movement eras and various Politicians of both political parties within the State, have been attempting for decades to "re-brand" Mississippi for Tourism, External Investment opportunities, etc, and if this apologist for White Supremacist rules in MS wins, it will likely cause a serious economic backlash for any FDI or US based MNC investment into MS.

Likely there will be economic boycotts to come if she is elected tomorrow, and many of the Country Club Republicans, and Small Business owners in Mississippi recognize the choice they are about to make....

There are likely quite a few Anglo Republicans in Mississippi that are extremely disturbed about her comments, and concerned about what this means for the future of one of the poorest States in the Union when it comes to desperately needed external investment.

The key question is how many will sit home, how many will switch parties (and where), and at what point does giving Trump an extra Senate seat matter considering Control of the US-Senate was already decided a few weeks back (Abortion / Evangelical Conservative Types)?

I don't pretend to know the answer to any of these questions, but what I do know is this...

Back in the early 1960s folk music artist Phil Ochs wrote a song shortly after the murder of the Civil Rights Freedom Riders outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi...

"Here's to the state of Mississippi,
For Underheath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
the calender is lyin' when it reads the present time.
Whoa here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of!
And here's to the people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows at the thunder of the Klan
The sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands
They smile and shrug their shoulders at the murder of a man
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the schools of Mississippi
Where they're teaching all the children that they don't have to care
All the rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
And every single classroom is a factory of despair
There's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the cops of Mississippi
They're chewing their tobacco as they lock the prison door
Their bellies bounce inside them when they knock you to the floor
No they don't like taking prisoners in their private little war
Behind their broken badges there are murderers and more
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And, here's to the judges of Mississippi
Who wear the robe of honor as they crawl into the court
They're guarding all the bastions of their phony legal fort
Oh, justice is a stranger when the prisoners report
When the black man stands accused the trial is always short
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the government of Mississippi
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns
And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sounds
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the laws of Mississippi
Congressmen will gather in a circus of delay
While the Constitution is drowning in an ocean of decay
Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say
Yes, corruption can be classic in the Mississippi way
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the churches of Mississippi
Where the cross, once made of silver, now is caked with rust
And the Sunday morning sermons pander to their lust
The fallen face of Jesus is choking in the dust
Heaven only knows in which God they can trust
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of"

Although most folks in MS never heard this song at the time, it was listened to by Tens of Millions of Baby Boomers throughout the Country in the 1960s and early 1970s....

Does Mississippi want to be known as a place "where old times are not forgotten", or as part of a Modern State of the "New South"?

This isn't just a rant, but if Arizona got boycotted for not observing MLK Day in the early '90s, how will it play for MS if they vote for an individual who appears to closely associated with White Supremacist style politics in late 2018 America???

[NOVA Green]

So Trump's two campaign stops were not accidental....

Biloxi on the Gulf Coast and Tupelo in Northeastern Mississippi...

The concept in the former is to jack up Turnout numbers among Anglo retirees in the Gulf Coast for an MS-SEN-PUB candidate who is likely extremely unpopular, especially after her recent "Hate Speech" rants....

The concept in the latter is to jack up Turnout numbers among WWC voters in a declining Textile Mill region of NE MS, where job losses have escalated over the decades as Textile Mill Jobs, shifted to Furniture Mfg Jobs, etc, where an entire region of Appalachia has seen Millions of job losses since Bush Sr signed MFN status for China....

I could be wrong on all this, but I strongly suspect that Trump's visits to various places were not accidental, intended to promote his own brand and attempt to boost minor TO levels in certain regions of the State....

Really curious why Trump didn't show up in Metro Jackson or De Soto County, since really if I were to look at places where we might see massive Anglo flips in MS, Madison County would be towards the top of my list, not to mention certain places in Rankin County....

We will see, but interestingly enough Trump's campaign appearances today almost speaks more from a position of weakness than strength....

[Badger]

So Trump's two campaign stops were not accidental....

Biloxi on the Gulf Coast and Tupelo in Northeastern Mississippi...

The concept in the former is to jack up Turnout numbers among Anglo retirees in the Gulf Coast for an MS-SEN-PUB candidate who is likely extremely unpopular, especially after her recent "Hate Speech" rants....

The concept in the latter is to jack up Turnout numbers among WWC voters in a declining Textile Mill region of NE MS, where job losses have escalated over the decades as Textile Mill Jobs, shifted to Furniture Mfg Jobs, etc, where an entire region of Appalachia has seen Millions of job losses since Bush Sr signed MFN status for China....

I could be wrong on all this, but I strongly suspect that Trump's visits to various places were not accidental, intended to promote his own brand and attempt to boost minor TO levels in certain regions of the State....

Really curious why Trump didn't show up in Metro Jackson or De Soto County, since really if I were to look at places where we might see massive Anglo flips in MS, Madison County would be towards the top of my list, not to mention certain places in Rankin County....

We will see, but interestingly enough Trump's campaign appearances today almost speaks more from a position of weakness than strength....

Isn't DeSoto County primarily a white-collar suburb of Memphis rather than an old industrial base? I mean, I'm sure they have some factories, but my recollection is it was basically white flight Central with a state line added in for good measure.

[justfollowingtheelections]

I watched Trump's rally in Tupelo and everyone in the audience was white.  I couldn't even find one black person.  In Mississippi.  The most black state in the nation.

Also, when he spoke about African-American unemployment being at an all-time low, I heard some boos (and almost no cheers), and when he followed that by saying that the Republican party is the party of Lincoln, the crowd all of a sudden went very quiet.  I'm guessing Lincoln isn't a very popular figure in Mississippi (certainly not as popular as Jefferson Davis).

[smoltchanov]

I watched Trump's rally in Tupelo and everyone in the audience was white.  I couldn't even find one black person.  In Mississippi.  The most black state in the nation.

Also, when he spoke about African-American unemployment being at an all-time low, I heard some boos (and almost no cheers), and when he followed that by saying that the Republican party is the party of Lincoln, the crowd all of a sudden went very quiet.  I'm guessing Lincoln isn't a very popular figure in Mississippi (certainly not as popular as Jefferson Davis).

Why must Lincoln be especially popular among Mississippi's whites? It was a slaveholding state with so many slaves, that they comprised a majority at some periods. One of the crucial elements of Lincoln's program (abolition of slavery) was, for Mississipi's rural whites, a nightmare - their economic positions and way of life they got accustemed to, could utterly be destroyed. And so on.

And why do you expect many Blacks on Trump's rallies, when they voted 98% against him and party he represent?

P.S. That's the same almost everywhere. Ask most of Russian population about "golden days", and plurality at least will say "Soviet period" (may be - even under Stalin). Though 27 years have passed since the break of Soviet Union, and 65 - since Stalin's death.  And Poland is still bitter at Russia and Russian people for it's role in Poland's "partitioning" in 18th century, though, obviously, no living Russian participated in it. It seems, that the "white Deep South" is at least somewhat similar - it still dreams (mostly)  about days of "Old South" as the "golden period". May be - it's simply a part of human nature. "Gone with the wind" vividly describes feelings of Georgia plantators and "white plain folk" of that time to Lincoln. Unlike Georgia - most of present day white people of Mississippi are descendants of these "plantators and plain folk"...

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I watched Trump's rally in Tupelo and everyone in the audience was white.  I couldn't even find one black person.  In Mississippi.  The most black state in the nation.

Also, when he spoke about African-American unemployment being at an all-time low, I heard some boos (and almost no cheers), and when he followed that by saying that the Republican party is the party of Lincoln, the crowd all of a sudden went very quiet.  I'm guessing Lincoln isn't a very popular figure in Mississippi (certainly not as popular as Jefferson Davis).

LOL, you really expect White Mississippians to love Abraham Lincoln? Also, love Lincoln more than Jefferson Davis?

Have you not learned/heard about the Civil War and the Lost Cause?

[Brittain33]

And why do you expect many Blacks on Trump's rallies, when they voted 98% against him and party he represent?

It wasn't 98%. Exit polls have it more like 90%. There is a small minority of African-American men (very few African-American women) who vote Republican and even vote for Trump. It's not 0.

That said, it probably will be closer to 98% for the Democratic candidate in a) a low-turnout run-off election featuring b) an African-American male candidate vs. a white Republican woman candidate who loves the Confederacy. I wouldn't expect many to turn out for Cindy Hyde-Smith.