by Adam Ganucheau
Mississippi At present
Simply 5 nights earlier than the 2019 governor’s election, about 10,000 Republicans packed into the BancorpSouth Area in Tupelo to listen to a rambunctious President Donald Trump plead with Mississippians to vote for Tate Reeves.
It was borderline baffling that an immensely fashionable Republican president needed to fly all the way down to a powerful Republican state within the eleventh hour and marketing campaign for a widely known Republican candidate. However Reeves was struggling to achieve the 50% mark in polling towards longtime Democratic Lawyer Normal Jim Hood, and Democrats smelled blood within the water.
“Wait a minute, how is that this man … I can’t imagine this can be a aggressive race,” Trump acknowledged from the rostrum that evening. “I’m speaking to Mississippi, I can’t imagine it. I don’t suppose (Hood) goes to be the best man. I feel the best man is Tate Reeves. He might be an awesome governor.”
Quite a lot of prognosticators nonetheless imagine that rowdy, high-energy Trump rally gained Reeves the 2019 race. Advisers near Hood mentioned they’d inner polls going into the final two weeks of the election that really had the Democrat main Reeves. However on Election Day 5 days after Trump’s Tupelo go to, Reeves gained with 51.9% of the vote.
4 years later, a lot is identical. Reeves is once more favored on the prime of the ticket for governor. However but once more, he’s struggling to achieve the 50% mark in polling towards one other powerful Democratic challenger, this time longtime Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.
However not all is identical this yr. Trump, after all, just isn’t the president. As a substitute of jetting off to political rallies to spice up Republican allies throughout the nation, the previous president is tied up in quite a few authorized proceedings at each the state and federal ranges. Late this week, two of his closest allies accepted plea offers and appeared to activate him in these deliberations. And a choose slapped him with a $5,000 nice on Friday for violating a gag order in his New York fraud case.
Trump, who clearly has different issues on his thoughts than Reeves’ probabilities in November, has not weighed in but on the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race, and it’s not clear if he’ll. It’s additionally not clear if it could imply practically as a lot to Mississippi voters if he did.
A Mississippi At present/Siena Faculty ballot performed in September confirmed a fair favorable/unfavorable cut up amongst Mississippi voters on Trump — a way more adverse general view of the previous president than in earlier years’ polling.
With Republican operatives buzzing about GOP enthusiasm and turnout considerations, Reeves likability considerations, and a Democratic marketing campaign that’s making some strides, is one other Trump go to on the horizon?
And if not, is there one other silver bullet Reeves can load into his chamber?
What We’re Watching
1) Presley introduced a statewide bus tour to shut out his 2023 marketing campaign. The marketing campaign mentioned the tour will make 55 stops throughout the state within the ultimate weeks of the election.
2) Reeves spent his Friday in southwest Mississippi, visiting McComb, Liberty and Woodville. Apparently, Amite and Wilkinson counties — dwelling to about 21,000 folks between the 2 — acquired visits from each Reeves and Presley this week. Presley visited the counties Thursday to formally fulfill a promise to go to all 82 counties this yr.
3) It is linked within the headlines above, however Mississippi At present’s Geoff Pender settled any questions or debate as we speak about what number of gubernatorial debates there might be. Pender studies: “It seems (Nov. 1) would be the solely gubernatorial debate, not the primary. It additionally would seem Reeves agreed to the only debate simply days earlier than the election to defang Presley’s declare — and marketing campaign fodder — that he was dodging and ‘hiding’ from the voting public, not due to Reeves’ robust want to debate.”
This text first appeared on Mississippi At present and is republished right here below a Artistic Commons license.
Signal and ship to Congress: Cross the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Development Act