Why did Mississippi swing so hard to the right?

[Tekken_Guy]

Mississippi swung rightwards by 8 points this year from 2020, whereas other Deep South states had much more modest rightward swings.

[Frodo]

With black men generally swinging towards Trump, this could have also been reflected in the Mississippi Delta.  Given Mississippi has the highest number and percentage of black voters of any state in the United States, maybe that could be why Mississippi swung as hard to the right as it did?  

[dkxdjy]

Most of the Delta is depopulating over time, in some parts quite rapidly, bound to contribute to a rightward swing statewide

[Zed!]

It only trended 0.80%. Not really that hard right tbh.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Guess off-year elections have absolutely no predictive value then as Louisiana only swung half as much rightward even though their governor race last year was a total R blowout/D collapse while Dems actually came quite close to unseating Reeves the following month.

Also that Kentucky governor bellwether theory predicting the following year’s presidential race has gone to pot now.

[King of Kensington]

It has no D-trending demographics at all?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Some of it is definitely turnout differential between whites and blacks - only 4 individual counties had a swing of over 10% to Trump and most had a swing of less than 8% (with many populated counties like Hinds, Rankin, and DeSoto barely swinging right). It's also worth noting all 4 counties that did swing over 10% right are close to 50/50 between black and white populations, which further suggests the idea that differential turnout is responsible - rural counties that were more racially homogenous had smaller swings.

If you just assumed turnout was constant and only looked at topline swings, you'd only think MS shifted like 5% right.

[Existing in the context]

It has no D-trending demographics at all?

Generational overchange do benefits the Democrats long term. It has the largest black population in the country and I believe its under 18 population is already 50% black or atleast near it. But with brain drain and a host of other issues it likely wont trend as fast as Georgia or North Carolina. It trending right is kind of worrysome for Democrats but in the vaccum of low turnout among non swing state Democrats its probably just noise.

[wbrocks67]

2020: 1.32M — Trump 757K, Biden 539K
2024: 1.15M — Trump 708K, Harris 429K

Again a good example of mostly turnout differentials. The state had a really big dropoff from 2020 (~170,000); even Trump lost 50k votes from 2020, but Harris lost 110K.

D areas clearly didn't turn out - just look at Hinds. Nearly 30% dropoff in turnout from 2020. Wasn't persuasion either - same 73-25 margin both years.

[Del Tachi]

Mostly a decrease in turnout from 2020, and especially among Black voters.

Although I do think the trend of Trump marginally improving with Black voters should put MS off the table as a competitive state for awhile.

[jaichind]

The total raw Trump vote fell over 6% in MS which does not make any sense.  I suspect there are more vote dumps to come in MS which overall make the swing toward GOP less than it seems today.

[Annatar]

MS is one of the states where younger voters are much more Republican than older ones, so you would expect it to get more Republican over time.

AP exit poll has Trump at 66% with 18-44 voters vs only 59% with voters over 45.

This is driven by both white and black voters, Trump got 85% of whites aged 18-44 in MS vs only 81% of whites aged over 45. Younger whites in MS are more republican than older whites, this is also the case in many other states as well that are not dominated by liberal college whites. Among blacks, Harris got only 69% among blacks aged 18-44 vs 92% among blacks over 45.

The exit poll is almost certainly understating her margin among 18-44 year old blacks but it is reasonable to assume younger blacks in MS are less democratic than older ones.

[Zed!]

Mississippi also likes populism. look at 23 and 19. trump has always gone over GOP baseline here.

[Linda Van der Hampel]

Mississippi usually counts hundreds of thousands in additional votes after election day.

It was the some in the governor race, in which the late ballots narrowed Reeves' margin considerably after election night.

[Pericles]

From the NYT's analysis, it had the biggest turnout drop of all states for both sides. Democrats however were hit hardest by black voters just not showing up, unlike how they lost voters to direct switching elsewhere.

[Linda Van der Hampel]

From the NYT's analysis, it had the biggest turnout drop of all states for both sides. Democrats however were hit hardest by black voters just not showing up, unlike how they lost voters to direct switching elsewhere.

MS results are not yet final, we need to wait for certification. Probably 200.000 ballots will be added to election night.

[EpicHistory]

Generational overchange do benefits the Democrats long term. It has the largest black population in the country and I believe its under 18 population is already 50% black or atleast near it. But with brain drain and a host of other issues it likely wont trend as fast as Georgia or North Carolina. It trending right is kind of worrysome for Democrats but in the vaccum of low turnout among non swing state Democrats its probably just noise.

Mississippi's Black population is actually shrinking and the State's White population has a higher fertility rate (1.78 vs 1.71). Adding to this, IIRC younger Whites in Mississippi actually vote more Republican than older Whites; the one demographic growing in size is Hispanics and given the voting shifts seen over the last eight years among them, I just don't see any cause for hope here for Dems.

[RBH]

the AP totals for Mississippi right now

Donald Trump GOP 708,302   61.6%
Kamala Harris Dem 429,231   37.3%

the official MS totals which were released today

Trump 746305 (60.9%)
Harris 465357 (38%)

so +38k for Trump and +36k for Harris

slight boost for Harris in the % in the official results

Trump dropped 10k votes from 2020 to 2024
Harris got 74k fewer votes than Biden

[Don't Tread on Me]

Guess off-year elections have absolutely no predictive value then as Louisiana only swung half as much rightward even though their governor race last year was a total R blowout/D collapse while Dems actually came quite close to unseating Reeves the following month.

Also that Kentucky governor bellwether theory predicting the following year’s presidential race has gone to pot now.

Biden and by extension Harris for not separating herself from him have typically lagged behind generic Dems both in polling & in the most recent election results (2022 approval ratings supported this as well). A generic Dem could've beat Trump if Biden never declared for re-election.