Hi all,
Seth Levi here from SPLC Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) affiliate of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Over the summer, I wrote several posts about why we thought the Mississippi Democratic candidate for Governor Brandon Presely had a very real shot of winning the election and asked you to consider supporting our affiliate Super PAC’s efforts in the race. Thank you to everyone who donated to New Southern Majority (NSM)!
NSM spent several hundred thousand dollars on video and display ads, direct mail and outdoor advertising highlighting Governor Tate Reeves’ personal involvement in the Mississippi $77 million welfare scandal, which polling showed had alienated many Republicans. And we know the ads resonated—besides the analytics data, some of the ads generated organic media buzz.
We obviously came up short in the election, but the results verify our claim that Mississippi is the next Southern state to flip.
The Republican incumbent Governor Tate Reeves received only 50.9% of the vote, down from 51.9% in 2019. This was the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999, and one of the closest governor’s races for an incumbent in the 2022 and 2023 cycles. Governor Beshear in Kentucky, for example, increased his win margin from 49.2% in 2019 to 52.5% this year. Governor Evers of Wisconsin, a swing state, increased his win from 49.5% in 2018 to 51.2% in 2022.
Digging into the data, we see two major takeaways that should make us all optimistic: 1) Mississippi Republican voters aren’t as ideological and monolithic as we assume and 2) Black voters have an enormous amount of voting power in the state.
On the first point, Reeves underperformed his Lt. Governor running mate by 15 percent, and Presley overperformed his running mate by 23 percent. This demonstrates that when we provide Republican voters with information about the candidates, many will make informed decisions and cross party lines. An analysis by Split District estimates that Presley won 22 percent of the white vote, up from the 17 percent that Biden won.
On the second point, Black voters were an incredible force in this election. Their turnout was so strong that, according to Split Ticket, “the 2023 Mississippi electorate probably would have voted for Trump by about 11 points in 2020, meaning it was significantly friendlier to Democrats than the actual 2020 electorate (which was Trump +17).”
If it weren’t for the state’s racist disenfranchisement law, the outcome of the election likely would’ve been different. In Mississippi, an estimated 240,000 citizens have permanently lost their voting rights because of a felony conviction. While Black citizens only make up 38 percent of the state’s population, they account for an estimated 54 percent of disenfranchised citizens.* Reeves only won by 26,619 votes.
We’ve been saying for years that Mississippi will be the next Southeast state to flip, and these results demonstrate the veracity of that claim. We must continue investing in Mississippi elections, registering new voters and calling out the mediocrity of the current elected leadership if we want that prediction to come true.
Finally, it’s important to remember that flipping Mississippi is bigger than just partisan politics. NSM put so much money into Mississippi because, unlike Reeves, Presley would be a governor for all Mississippians—not just the rich and powerful. Presley, for example, pledged to implement Medicaid expansion, which would provide health insurance to as many as 300,000 Mississippians.
With the 2024 election season just around the corner, I hope you’ll consider making a year-end gift to New Southern Majority to support our work next year. We’ll mainly be focusing on local elections—specifically, school board elections where conservative-controlled boards have been restricting the teaching of race, gender and LGBTQ+ topics in classrooms, going as far as to ban books and fire teachers. We’re eying several large boards that we believe we can flip, as well as getting involved in defending some incumbent progressive school board members being targeted by Republicans because they’re “woke.”
Please join us by donating to NSM today and become a catalyst for change in the South and beyond. Thanks again to all our supporters in 2023. Be well in the New Year!
-Seth
*The Southern Poverty Law Center won a ruling in the Fifth Circuit that the disenfranchisement law is unconstitutional. The next month after this historic victory, however, the court granted Mississippi’s request to rehear the case and dropped the August order. Still, the fight isn’t over. If the SPLC ultimately prevails, it could change the balance of power in the state overnight.