Mason-Dixon is out with a rare poll of next week’s GOP primary for governor of Mississippi, and they show Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who has been the frontrunner for the entire contest, failing to take the majority of the vote he’d need to avoid an Aug. 27 runoff. They give Reeves the lead with 41%, while former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. leads state Rep. Robert Foster 31-13 for the second place spot.
The only other poll we’ve seen of this contest was an early June survey from the Republican firm Impact Management Group. That poll, which was conducted for the conservative Mississippi blog Y'All Politics, showed Reeves with a huge 50-19 lead over Waller, with Foster at just 9%. However, Reeves himself has been acting like he thinks this contest will go into overtime. The lieutenant governor said last week that, while he’s aiming to win outright, “It's hard to get to 50 when there are three people.”
Foster, meanwhile, recently went up with a spot that draws attention to his brief moment of national infamy. Earlier this month, Foster refused to allow a female reporter to join him on a campaign tour unless she brought a male colleague along with her, and he defended himself by saying he wouldn’t be alone with any woman who isn’t his wife. (A few days later, Waller said he followed that same misogynistic rule.)
Foster’s commercial stars his wife, Heather Foster, who begins, “You may have seen my husband in the news lately. Robert's not trying to set a standard, he's just living by one.” Heather Foster goes on to talk about how the candidate has “lived out his faith and stood for his principles, even when it was unpopular.” There is no word on the size of the buy, but considering how the Foster campaign had just $7,000 on-hand at the end of June, it’s probably very small.
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