Let’s not mince words: Mississippi is a red state. Very, very red. Trump won 58 percent of the vote in 2016, and two years later, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith convincingly won a Senate special election despite making a racially charged statement in its final weeks.
But the state’s legislature is up for election this November, and there are three great reasons (detailed below) why Dems should get involved in key contests. Our analysis found several winnable, high-impact races that are worthy of your support. Read on for our analysis, or just jump to our consolidated donation link (below) to give right now — and let’s turn Mississippi a bit more purple in 2019!
Contents of this post:
Why Mississippi matters for progressives
How we identified high-impact races in the MS legislature
Our recommendations of MS races you should support
Further info (for diehards!)
1. WHY MISSISSIPPI MATTERS FOR PROGRESSIVES
OK, first the bad news about Mississippi. Not only do Republicans dominate both legislative houses, but they have 3/5 super-majorities in both the Senate (33-19) and the House (77-45; independents counted with Republicans). Not only does this give them control over redistricting after the 2020 Census, but it also gives them the ability to pass veto-proof budget bills.
But, but, but — there are still three great reasons to support Mississippi Democrats in the upcoming legislative elections:
We’ll also help other statewide Dems in close races: Two prominent Democrats have a shot at key state offices this year: popular former Hattiesburg mayor Johnny Dupree is running for Secretary of State, and 4-term Attorney General Jim Hood is in a tight race for Governor. By supporting local Dems’ GOTV efforts, we’ll likely get a “trickle-up” effect on these top-ticket races. Learn more about these races in our prior post, and support Dupree and Hood!
We’ll support continued GOTV efforts leading up to 2020: Mississippi’s special Senate election in 2018 ignited a huge amount of GOTV activity targeting the state’s black voters — which was great! By supporting legislative candidates in November, we can continue to build on that work from the last election.
We have a shot at cracking Republicans’ super-majority: As noted above, with wins of just two seats in the Senate and four in the House, we can prevent Republicans from having carte blanche over funding bills. We’re very close!
So, even though there’s virtually no chance of Dems winning a majority in the state legislature in 2019 (unlike in Virginia, which we have a shot of turning blue — see here for our post on that state’s upcoming legislative elections), it’s still a good use of our resources to support key candidates in Mississippi.
2. HOW WE IDENTIFIED HIGH-IMPACT RACES
Like in our Virginia analysis (see here), we used a combination of voting history and fundraising to identify high-priority races that appear competitive (flippable or endangered), and then did some deeper research to refine our list. (See the end of this post for references, methods, and links.)
A particular challenge in Mississippi is that Dems are only contesting a relatively small number of races — see below for a quick summary (footnotes explained at the end of the post):
| SENATE | HOUSE | |
| Uncontested - D | 11 | 36 |
| Uncontested - R | 23 | 52 |
| Contested - incumbent D | 3 | 5 |
| Contested - incumbent R/I | 6 | 19^ |
| Contested - open - legacy D | 5 | 4 |
| Contested - open - legacy R/I | 4 | 6* |
| TOTAL | 52 | 122 |
In the Senate, Dems need to end the day with 21 seats to block the Republican super-majority. Although we’re guaranteed to win 11 that are uncontested, we’ve only fielded candidates in 18 of the other 31 races, of whom only 3 are incumbents. There’s a similar situation in the House, where Dems need 49 seats to block the super-majority: 36 Democrats are running uncontested, but Dems are only running in 31 of the remaining 86 districts, and only 5 are incumbents. (This is one reason why groups like Run For Something are so critical — see the “further info” section of this post for details.)
A further challenge is that many of the Democratic candidates in contested races may not be viable; eight of 18 running in the Senate and 15 of 31 in the House reported less than $1,000 on hand in their latest filings.
3. OUR LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS
We identified seven candidates (six Senate, one House) we think are most impactful for progressives to support in the upcoming Mississippi elections — see below for details, or just use the one-click donation button!
(Quick note: Some state-level Democratic candidates, particularly in red and purple states, may have views on issues like gun control and abortion that are problematic to us and many other other progressives. We highlight key policy positions that we uncover during our limited background research, but we do not fully vet each candidate’s full platform. If this is a concern to you, please do your own diligence.)
SD 8 — Kegan Coleman: Although this open seat is in a long-time Democratic district, fundraising overall has been light — both candidates currently have under $1,000 cash on hand — so it may warrant some attention. Coleman is endorsed by Run For Something
SD 9 — Kevin Frye: The 24-year Republican incumbent won 60 percent of the vote last go-around, but this is the priciest race in the state so far this cycle, and Frye is putting up healthy fundraising numbers. He is endorsed by EveryDistrict.
SD 10 — Andre DeBerry: The northern district was strongly Democratic for at least a decade before the Republican incumbent won a non-partisan special election in 2017 to fill a retirement opening. In order to reclaim it, DeBerry needs help closing a big fundraising gap.
SD 22 — Joseph Thomas: This open district is the focus of a gerrymandering suit alleging it violates the Voting Rights Act. A January ruling may force a re-vote, but until then, Thomas, a former state senator endorsed by EveryDistrict, needs help closing a huge donation gap.
SD 37 — William Godfrey: The past two elections in this district have been nail-biters, and with the retirement of the incumbent Democrat, Godfrey’s fundraising puts him in striking distance. His opponent is seeking to reclaim the seat she held from 2011 to 2015.
SD 48 — Gary Fredericks: Fredericks, the local NAACP branch president, convincingly upset the 20-year incumbent in the Democratic primary, and leads his general election opponent, another political newcomer, in fundraising so far.
HD 64 — Shanda Yates: Yates seeks to unseat an eight-term Republican in a suburban district went 45 percent for Clinton in 2016. A pro-choice and pro-Medicaid expansion candidate, Yates has a healthy fundraising lead so far, and is endorsed by Sister District and EveryDistrict.
Now, it’s time to take action! We’ve set up a single site where you can easily donate to all of these candidates (or pick and choose among them) – click below to donate through our 2019 Mississippi legislature page on ActBlue.
4. FURTHER INFO (FOR DIEHARDS!)
For more info about the upcoming MS legislature election, check out the following sources, which we used to refine and vet our recommendations:
Y’all Politics is the best (only?) site we found devoted exclusively to Mississippi politics.
Several great organizations are supporting MS legislature candidates — check out high-impact picks from Sister District, Every District (House and Senate), and Run For Something. Sister District also provides a way for you to donate your time (as opposed to dollars).
Want to read more from Blue Ripple? Visit our website, sign up for email updates, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Folks interested in our data and modeling efforts should also check out our Github page.
About our methods: We used data from Ballotpedia to identify the contested races with Democratic candidates in both houses (18 Senate, 31 House), and determine the Dems’ vote percentage in the last contested election. We then collected candidates’ most recent cash-on-hand data (from PDFs — what a slog!) from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. We prioritized “close” races in which the Democrats captured 40-59% of both total fundraising this cycle (as of 8/15/19) and votes in the last contested election, in order to eliminate likely “blowouts” (in both directions) and focus on candidates for whom we reckon extra donations down the home stretch could make an outsized difference.
Footnotes to table: ^ Only 17 with Democratic candidates. * Only 5 with Democratic candidates.
Header photo via Wikipedia.