Straight from the horse’s mouth:
Don’t count out Mike Espy’s run for the senate just yet warns Mississippi GOP National Committeeman Henry Barbour.
In an interview Monday, Paul Gallo asked Barbour, who is the nephew of former governor Haley Barbour, about the “ungodly” amount of money the Espy campaign is spending in the state. Friday, Espy announced that he had raised $4 million from July to September. In that same time period, Hyde-Smith raised around $815,000.
Barbour says a majority of that goes to television ads but on the ground game as well. He admitted that the Espy campaign is well organized and that he does not think Espy’s 2018 campaign ever truly stopped.
And Espy is ready to go to the Senate:
If he's successful, he will be the first Black senator to serve Mississippi since Reconstruction. It wouldn't be the first time Espy made history, but he prefers to look to the future rather than focus on his pioneering past.
"I've already been the first this and that. I've done that," Espy told Newsweek, rattling off a list of accomplishments that include serving as Mississippi's first Black assistant secretary of state, assistant attorney general and congressman since the late 1800s—a position he was re-elected to three times before becoming the first Black person to lead the United States Department of Agriculture under President Bill Clinton.
"I'm not running to be something, I'm running to do something," Espy, 66, said about his Senate candidacy. "I'm tired of being last. Mississippi is tired of being last. We're last in health care, we're last in income, we're last in job opportunities. I want to do something about it."
Here’s a sign that Republicans are nervous:
Hyde Smith told the Clarion Ledger on Wednesday she doesn't plan to debate, citing a busy schedule and "stark, drastic" differences between herself and Espy that she believes voters already know about.
She similarly declined to debate him and other challengers before her 2018 special election, though eventually agreed to one before the runoff against Espy, which she won by about eight points.
"To be honest with you, the debate about debates, that is something that losing candidates and reporters care about," Hyde-Smith said in a phone interview. She said Mississippians are more interested in the issues themselves, such as the economy and coronavirus response, not hearing about whether a debate will occur.
At a news conference earlier in the day, Espy slammed Hyde-Smith for refusing to debate.
"I think it is imperative that voters hear directly from Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, and directly from me, about where we stand on the important issues of Mississippi," Espy said, adding she is disrespecting Mississippi voters and "taking them for granted."
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