Mississippi held its statewide primary on Tuesday, and while Attorney General Jim Hood claimed the Democratic nomination for governor with 69% of the vote, the GOP contest will go to an Aug. 27 runoff.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves took first place with 49% of the vote, just a hair below the majority he needed to win outright. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., whose father and namesake was the state’s Democratic governor in the mid-1970s, defeated state Rep. Robert Foster 33-18 to claim the other runoff spot. This will be the first time that a GOP gubernatorial primary has done to a second round since 1991.
Reeves, who has the support of termed-out Gov. Phil Bryant, has been the frontrunner for the entire contest. The lieutenant governor, who spent years building a war chest, also had a massive financial advantage over Waller, who only entered the race in February.
However, Reeves has made many enemies within the party during his time in politics. The Clarion-Ledger wrote that Reeves, who leads the state Senate, has run the chamber “with an iron fist,” which has alienated a number of party regulars. One unnamed state senator spoke to Mississippi Today back in January and said of Reeves, “Somebody said they like his policies, like on tax cuts, but that he might not have the best bedside manner.”
Reeves’ other intra-party detractors have been far less kind. Former state party chair Billy Powell, who supports Waller, declared that the lieutenant governor’s “arrogance turns me off,” and other Reeves critics have also liberally used the word arrogant to describe him. Waller, by contrast, has portrayed himself as considerably more friendly: One of his early Facebook ads unsubtly asked, “Shouldn’t you like your candidate for governor? Now you can.” Still, the first round of the primary was largely a civil affair, and no one ran any negative TV commercials against any of the candidates.
There are some real policy differences between Reeves and Waller. Reeves has vigorously opposed a Medicaid expansion, while Waller has argued that federal money is necessary to keep rural hospitals open. Waller also believes that a gas tax is needed to repair the state’s damaged infrastructure (nearly 500 bridges have been closed because of safety problems), while Reeves is against the idea. Foster largely shared Waller’s views, so it’s very possible that his voters will break for the former chief justice. However, it will still take a lot to stop Reeves from claiming a majority later this month after he came so close on Tuesday.
Mississippi is usually a reliably red state, but Hood may be able to pull off an upset in November. Hood is the only Democrat to have won a statewide election in over a decade, and he claimed his fourth term in 2015 by a 55-45 margin. Republicans aren’t wasting any time attacking Hood now that he’s the Democratic nominee, though, and Mississippi Strong, the RGA’s affiliated group, went up with their first TV spot on Tuesday night.
The commercial tries to tie Hood to national Democrats by accusing him of standing with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the “radical liberal resistance, suing to stop the Trump agenda.” The only time the ad actually mentions anything specific that Hood has done, though, is when the narrator declares that he “refused to fight to stop Obamacare.” The GOP has used this type of cookie-cutter messaging in plenty of other red state elections, with mixed success. However, it could still be effective in a state that Trump took 58-40.
Hood also faces another serious obstacle. Mississippi's 1890 state constitution contains a Jim Crow-era provision that, as long as it remains in force, could make it nearly impossible for him to prevail. This law requires gubernatorial candidates to win both a majority of the statewide vote and a majority of the 122 districts that make up the state House; if someone fails to hit both of these benchmarks, the state House picks the new governor from the top two finishers.
As we have previously shown, Mississippi's current system discriminates against black voters and consequently Democrats, and not just because Republicans gerrymandered the legislature. If the GOP-led House gets to choose the new governor there's little question that they'd pick Team Red's nominee no matter which candidate actually won the most votes. Several black voters are currently suing to overturn this law.
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