Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley announced Thursday that he would challenge Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in this November’s election to lead Mississippi, a move that gives Democrats a prominent candidate in a tough state.
This will be the first gubernatorial contest since voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment in 2020 to require a second round of voting three weeks later for any statewide general election contests where no one earns a majority of the vote, a rule that replaced the infamous Jim Crow-era electoral system the state previously used.
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Presley is the second cousin of Elvis Pressley (their grandfathers were brothers), and the candidate touted his connection to the King of Rock and Roll in a biographical kickoff video that also highlighted his roots in the rural “no stop light town” of Nettleton and his current role regulating utility companies. Presley, who has described himself as “pro-life” and a supporter of the Second Amendment, further used his opening message to declare, “We’ve got a state filled with good people but horrible politicians—and that includes our governor. Tate Reeves is a man with zero conviction and maximum corruption.”
The Democrat continued blasting Reeves by saying, “He looks out for himself and his rich friends instead of the people that put him into office. And he’s been caught in the middle of the largest public corruption scandal in state history.” That scandal involving the misuse of welfare money during the administration of Republican Phil Bryant is part of the reason that Reeves may draw an intra-party opponent ahead of the Feb. 1 candidate filing deadline, though no one has announced yet.
Perhaps most notably, text messages show that Bryant advised retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre how to get the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to fund his proposed volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi: Other messages show that Favre spoke to Reeves about getting state money for the project during the new governor's first weeks in office in 2020. Reeves, writes Mississippi Today, also "faced a barrage of criticism from voters after his office abruptly fired the attorney who was investigating the breadth of the misspending."
Pressley will still very much have his work cut out for him in November even if the scandal intensifies, though he’s long demonstrated crossover appeal in conservative areas. Pressley, who endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 when he was mayor of Nettleton, was decisively elected three years later to represent northern Mississippi on the three-member Public Service Commission. The Democrat has never come close to losing re-election, and he even went unopposed in 2019 even as Reeves was carrying his constituency 55-44; Donald Trump won 61-38 here the following year.
A victory for Pressley this fall would make him the only the second Democrat to be elected governor in over 30 years, and the first to win in the 21st century. Republicans took control of the governor’s office for the first time since Reconstruction in 1991 when Kirk Fordice unseated incumbent Ray Mabus (whose cousin recently became engaged to Pressley), and the only contest they’ve lost since then came in 1999 when Democrat Ronnie Musgrove edged out Mike Parker 49.6-48.5.
The Democratic-led state House, though, had to vote to make Musgrove the winner because the 1890 state constitution required statewide candidates to win both a majority of the statewide vote and a majority of the 122 districts that make up the lower chamber. (In a remarkable development, each candidate won 61 seats). Republican Haley Barbour outright defeated Musgrove 53-46 four years later, and his party has had firm control since then: The closest Democrats have come to reclaiming the governorship came in 2019 when Reeves outpaced then-Attorney General Jim Hood 52-47.
Democrats worried before Election Day that state House Republicans, who had gerrymandered their map after taking control in 2011, would not allow Hood to become governor if he won the most votes but failed to take the requisite 62 districts, but this rule is no longer in effect following the passage of the aforementioned 2020 constitutional amendment. It’s now possible, however, that enough voters will select a third-party option on Nov. 7 to force the top-two vote-getters into a Nov. 28 runoff.