Tag: Jackson, Mississippi

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI (The Borowitz Report)—Celebrating her election victory on Tuesday night, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said that, despite predictions that her state was ready to turn the page on its shameful past, “I never lost faith in Mississippi’s racists.” “For weeks, we’ve been hearing national pundits say that Mississippi was ready to enter the twenty-first century,” Hyde-Smith told a crowd of supporters at her victory rally. “Tonight, with your help, we proved them wrong.” Hyde-Smith said that, despite the media’s unearthing of a cavalcade of embarrassing comments and actions from her past, “I never doubted that, at the end of the day, the people of Mississippi would listen to the racist voices in their heads.” Choking back tears, Hyde-Smith thanked her supporters for honoring Mississippi’s storied heritage of hatred and cruelty. “Mississippi voters do not want to tear down the relics of our Confederate past,” she said. “As such a relic, I am eternally grateful.” Exit polls showed that Hyde-Smith performed extremely well with voters who described themselves as bigots, and dominated among those who could not correctly spell “Mississippi.”

Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith at an election night party in Jackson, Miss., this month. — A special election for the Senate in Mississippi has become a test of racial and partisan politics in the Deep South, as a Republican woman, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and an African-American Democrat, Mike Espy, compete for the last Senate seat still up for grabs in the 2018 midterm campaign. Ms. Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to a seat in the Senate earlier this year, seemed until recently to be on a glide path toward winning the election in her own right. A private Republican poll last week found Ms. Hyde-Smith’s lead over Mr. Espy had narrowed to just five percentage points, three people briefed on the data said. “It would’ve been so much better if she apologized,” Mr. Feaster said. The contest went to a runoff when none of four candidates received the 50 percent of votes needed to win outright. Strategists in both parties believe Ms. Hyde-Smith remains the favorite: She was the top vote-getter in the first round, slightly outpacing Mr. Espy even though there was another Republican — Chris McDaniel, a divisive, strongly conservative state senator — on the ballot. No Democrat has won a Senate race in Mississippi since 1982. “People know there’s a runoff. Mr. Espy’s advisers have told political donors that they believe he needs to mobilize black voters in force and win about a quarter of white voters to defeat Ms. Hyde-Smith, a near-herculean task in a state where the two political parties are split chiefly along racial lines.