A week ago the Senate seat in Mississippi was assumed to be pretty much a lock for the Republicans. But then appointed Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said that she would be delighted to attend a lynching in Donald Trump’s America in 2018. Now this egregious remark has helped to put the seat very much in play. According to this front page article in the Washington Post, the Republicans are now very worried the seat could be lost.
According to the Post:
Espy remains the underdog in the conservative state, but Republicans with access to private polling say Hyde-Smith’s lead has narrowed significantly in recent days. Republicans need only to look to next-door Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones pulled out a surprise win last year, to stoke concern.
The runoff takes place in just ten days on Nov. 27 so time is of the essence. I hope that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or any other prominent Democrat goes to Mississippi to campaign. Clearly the Republicans are taking it seriously:
Concern over the tightness of the race came up last week during a conference call that Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo), head of the NRSC, held with Republican donors. In it, he equated the Mississippi race with the party’s ongoing fight over ballots in Florida.
“We take this race very, very seriously,” Gardner said, according to audio obtained by The Post. “We have emptied out the building of the senatorial committee to two places: Florida and Mississippi.”
Let’s help Mike Espy make another historical moment in this year of them by becoming the first black Senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
“Some might be overly optimistic — but it can happen,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the dean of the Mississippi congressional delegation and its only Democrat. “It would go a long ways toward saying Mississippi is changing its old segregationist ways by the election of Mike Espy. It would go a long ways toward doing away with the stereotypical notion that people in this country have about Mississippi.”
Mississipians on both sides of the aisle are open to considering Mike Espy in the wake of Hyde-Smith’s remarks. But we must get Espy the resources to make his case in this short time before the election. That is why I have recently contributed to his campaign and ask that you do so as well.
It turned the whole thing upside down . . . I knew who I was going to vote for before this. Now I don’t,” said a man named William, a white Republican and self-described “Trumpster” who voted for Hyde-Smith two weeks ago. He declined to provide his last name because he didn’t want to publicly disclose he was considering voting for a Democrat. “Mike Espy is a good guy. Nothing wrong with him.”