Over the last few days I’ve been noting there are quiet yet pronounced high expectations for the final, runoff segment of the race to replace Senator Cochrane (R-MS) in the Hyde-Smith (R) / Espy (D) race in Mississippi on the Democratic side of things. This has been strengthened by interesting media reports, such as this from WaPo:
Espy remains the underdog in the conservative state, but Republicans with access to private polling say Hyde-Smith’s lead has narrowed significantly in recent days. Republicans need only to look to next-door Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones pulled out a surprise win last year, to stoke concern.
For Republicans, the Nov. 27 runoff is a chance for a slight expansion of their majority in the Senate, their one bright spot in this year’s midterm elections. If Hyde-Smith wins and Gov. Rick Scott keeps his lead in the Senate race in Florida, Republicans would have a senate majority of 53 to 47. A loss in Mississippi would give the GOP a 52-to-48 majority, only one up from the current razor-thin margin.
From The Resurgent, the home of Erick Erickson, which I class as right-wing extremist yet never-Trump organization, comes an unsigned editorial:
As Sam Hall, executive editor of Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger, put it on Twitter today, the way the “Hyde-Smith only five points up” poll makes sense is if McDaniel voters aren’t planning to show up to vote for her. In Hall’s words, “McDaniel backers are the wildcard voting bloc. A lot of people are asking, ‘How many of them will sit at home?’” Of course, as Hall notes, that might not be the right question to ask—there might not even be enough hardcore McDaniel types out there to deprive Hyde-Smith of a win if they stay home on election day. Still, if Hyde-Smith is in jeopardy, this is very likely the reason why—not the other stuff the national media has been focusing on. And to be fair, some Mississippi political insiders have been worried about this proving to be the case for a long time.
For the uninitiated, a lot of McDaniel fans feel they got screwed in former Sen. Thad Cochran’s re-election, when the Cochran-Barbour machine in Mississippi worked every conceivable angle to deprive McDaniel—who is regarded as a stauncher conservative but also was accused of racism and may even have appealed to some Mississippi voters as a result of it—of a win.
Subsequently, that same machine let a short time pass, Cochran exited the US Senate, and Hyde-Smith—a former Democrat who also has the backing of the same Mississippi GOP establishment—took his place.
McDaniel, in case my reader has forgotten or missed it, is “Trumpier than Trump,” to paraphrase his own description, which makes “staunch conservative” seem to be a misnomer. But the analysis, if true, may make this race exceedingly close.
The Republicans are in an awful pickle, for even victory really isn’t good enough – in one of the most conservative states in the Union, winning by a sliver is a measure of their dying brand. The Republicans will need to win big, or it’s going to start looking like death by a million tick bites, and those are the ticks that carry Lyme Disease[1]. Worse yet, the length of service for this seat is only until 2020, as former Senator Cochrane resigned midway through his term due to health reasons.
The metric here is the magnitude of victory for the Republican candidate. A quick glance at recent Senate contests in Mississippi suggest that a triumphant GOP would expect a 20 point victory in Mississippi, so I’d say that if Hyde-Smith wins by more than 15 points, the GOP has little to worry about.
If she wins by 10-15 points, the Republicans should be frowning a bit, and worse if it’s 5-10.
The real danger is winning by less than 5 points, because the party activists won’t take it seriously. They’re entrenched and feeding off what makes them feel good, and the fact that they’re the ones poisoning the water will not be accepted by them. Then the GOP in Mississippi will be in danger of becoming irrelevant until they eject the extremists who cling to white supremacist artifacts, such as those clutched by Hyde-Smith.
And if they lose? The Mississippi Republicans will shatter but not die, at least not for a few years. Denial is a strong psychological urge, especially for those who’ve rejected justice in favor of economic advantage.
The election is Tuesday. Everyone will be watching, including President Trump, who supposedly is campaigning for Hyde-Smith. If she fails, it’ll be egg on his face as well as her’s. Not that he’ll admit it.
