Mississippians will be casting votes for both their US senate seats in November this year. In a normal year, this would have little interest for Democrats but there’s nothing normal in the Trump Era and that includes Mississippi.
The first of them is an incumbent who is up for re-election: Roger Wicker. His Democratic opponent is David Baria, the state House Minority Leader, who has a whisker of a chance though it be exceedingly slim. In his favor: he knows how to run a winning campaign, is widely liked and, as an unapologetic Democrat, offers Dem voters a real choice, something of a scarcity in red states.
Nor is he deterred by the odds as he explains in an interview with the Jackson Free Press.
Baria, a longtime state lawmaker, is not daunted by his odds. He readily admits that funding has been a struggle, and he knew that from the get-go.
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“I think we had a very good strategy, which was to take somewhat limited resources, and when I say that, I'm very thankful that we've been able to raise and spend $300,000, which is really phenomenal for a Democrat in Mississippi during a two-month span, that's essentially what we're talking about.”
He’ll also have Dem voters all to himself while Roger Wicker will have a Libertarian and a Reform party candidate vying to siphon off his R voters. No-one expects the minors to attract too many votes but it will be interesting to see how much help he gets from them in what is shaping up to be a blue wave year.
Baria’s already benefited from the Wicker-McDaniel feud leading up to the republican primary. Wicker has over $3 Million in his war chest but was forced to spend a slice of that to ward off tea partier and general trouble-maker, Chris McDaniel, only to see that money and effort totally wasted when McDaniel switched races before the primary.
The second senate race opened up when Senator Thad Cochran announced his mid-term retirement this year. Although held on the same day as the Midterms, it will be a special election; a jungle primary to determine either an outright winner with over 50% of the vote or the top two to go to a runoff election later in the month.
This race and recent polling would likely have slipped quietly under the radar if it hadn’t been for this Roll Call article. It prompted Molly Jong-Fast to tweet: “This seems like a very big deal.”
Let’s take a look-see.
Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith was appointed to take Cochran’s place until the end of this year so this will be her first time facing the electorate for this seat. Her most belligerent rival will be the afore-mentioned Chris McDaniel who felt he was cheated out of this seat in an extremely acrimonious primary runoff recently described by the Clarion Ledger as Mississippi’s WILD, DIRTY, CRAZY, TRAGIC, EPIC 2014 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FOR U.S. SENATE. McDaniel lost out again this year when he was overlooked for the appointment so this will be his third run at the seat and while it’s highly unlikely to be third time lucky for him, he’ll certainly siphon off a significant number of votes from Hyde-Smith and prevent her winning the race outright.
The Democratic candidate in this race is Mike Espy who is credited with having an even better chance of pulling off a Mississippi upset than David Baria. Not only will McDaniel unintentionally help him by forcing Hyde-Smith to spend money and effort fending him off but also, like David Baria, he will get an assist from the downward slide of the republicans nationwide.
The extent of that slide will be a big factor in both these senate races in a year when the republican party cachet is being seriously challenged by a higher-than-usual number of retirements and resignations, and taking a hammering with the arrest of Chris Collins (NY-27), the indictment of Duncan Hunter (CA-50), with Jim Jordan (OH-04) being sued in a class action suit involving sexual misconduct.
Add to this upcoming trials for former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort (his second following eight convictions last month), former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen (SDNY), the Trump Foundation (NY AG) and the likelihood of more indictments to come before November.
So yes, Molly, this race is a BFD!