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Incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said last week he is eager to have debates with his Democratic challenger Brandon Presley and that his campaign was working with Presley’s to make them happen.

But a spokesman for the Presley campaign on Thursday said, “That was news to us,” and that Reeves’ campaign has made no such entreaties.

Despite both candidates saying they are eager to debate each other, no Mississippi gubernatorial debates have been announced as the Nov. 7 election draws near.

The Reeves campaign on Thursday did not respond to a request for comment or update on gubernatorial debate plans.

Presley has for months called on Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves to debate him. Presley has proposed five debates and has accepted debate invitations from WJTV in Jackson for Oct. 13 and stations across the state owned by Gray Television for Oct. 26. He’s accused Reeves of dodging debates.

Reeves at a press conference last week said he’ll have debates — plural — with Presley, and that, “Our team is working with their team.”

“I have been pretty busy,” Reeves said last week. “… I am letting the campaign team work on that. But I am sure we are going to have debates. We have always had debates.”

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves says he’ll have ‘debates’ with challenger Brandon Presley

Presley’s campaign on Thursday launched a new video ad titled “Hunt,” accusing Reeves of “hiding” from Mississippians and refusing to debate. The Presley campaign in a release said, “Tate Reeves is nowhere to be found in planning debates or responding to debate organizers.”

The Presley ad features a tracker with a team of bloodhounds searching for Reeves. The narrator says, “Tate Reeves has gone missing. He refuses to face the people.” At the end, Presley says, “I’m Brandon Presley, and unlike Tate Reeves, I won’t hide from the people of Mississippi.”

Last week, Reeves said he was eager to face Presley in person.

“I’ll be honest with you, I look forward to getting on the stage with that individual, who seems to have a really hard time telling the truth,” Reeves said. “It doesn’t matter the topic, he has a pretty easy time lying … I give him credit, he’s a really talented politician — that is to say he’s willing to lie about anything. He’s willing to stand in any room and say what he thinks they want to hear, and then he goes to the next room and says something exactly opposite based upon what he believes their views are.”

Conventional wisdom is debates would be most likely to help a challenger such as Presley, trailing the incumbent in campaign cash and name recognition.

Every Mississippi gubernatorial election since at least 1987, with the exception of one, has seen candidate debates — and in most cases multiple debates. In 2015, incumbent Gov. Phil Bryant did not debate his Democratic opponent Robert Gray.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves still hasn’t agreed to a debate against challenger Brandon Presley appeared first on Mississippi Today.

LAUREL — Days after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves doubled down on his stance against Medicaid expansion, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley promised Jones County voters he’d pass the policy on his first day in office.

The state’s health care crisis has remained one of the major issues of the governor’s race. As hospitals struggle financially and hundreds of thousands in the state don’t have health care coverage, the top gubernatorial candidates are debating the merits of Medicaid expansion, a federal-state program that would provide health care coverage to an estimated 300,000 poor, working Mississippians and help hospitals cover costs.

Presley, who appeared at a legislative forum in Laurel on Wednesday hosted by Rep. Omeria Scott, placed the blame for the state’s health care problems squarely on the governor’s shoulders and repeatedly vowed to expand Medicaid.

“Now there’s one reason Tate Reeves is not for expanding Medicaid,” Presley said. “It’s because a Democratic president passed the Affordable Care Act, and what a silly, small way to be. Let me tell you about me: If Donald Trump had passed the Affordable Care Act and 230,000 people in this state would benefit, I’d be for it in five seconds because it’s not about the politics. It’s about the people.”

Mississippi is one of just 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid, an option under former President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act. Experts say the state could receive about $1 billion a year for expansion, and it would go a long way to stemming Mississippi’s health care crisis. One report puts nearly a half of rural hospitals at risk of closing — many of them are losing millions caring for people who are uninsured.

Reeves reiterated his opposition to Medicaid expansion at a press conference last week announcing a hospital funding plan, repeatedly disparagingly calling it “welfare” and suggesting the health care crisis would be aided if more people joined the workforce in Mississippi.

But supporters of Medicaid expansion say it’s for people who are already working but don’t have jobs that provide them with private health insurance.

READ MORE: Experts say Gov. Tate Reeves’ plan will help hospitals, but not uninsured Mississippians

Just last week — less than two months before the election — Reeves announced a complex scheme to draw down more federal money for hospitals in lieu of expanding Medicaid. While his plan, which hasn’t been approved by the federal government yet, would put more money in some hospitals’ pockets, it won’t insure more Mississippians. 

That means under Reeves’ plan, uninsured people in Mississippi will largely have to continue to rely on emergency rooms for their medical care and forgo preventative care. 

At the forum on Wednesday, Presley reminded attendees of Reeves’ plan and who it benefits.

“Remember that Tate Reeves has shown us who he is. Don’t forget it,” he said. “With your help on Nov. 7, we’re gonna tell Tate Reeves his party’s over.

Presley also drew contrasts between his background and Reeves’ at the Wednesday event.

“I understand what it’s like to come home and have your lights and your water cut off,” he said. “Tate Reeves doesn’t understand families like ours exist. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I have been where working people in Mississippi are. It’s one of the reasons that I support and will take action on day one to expand Medicaid.”

The proclamation garnered shouts and applause from the hundred constituents before him, including Samella Walker. 

Walker, a lifelong resident of Laurel, is a three-time cancer survivor who knows intimately the importance of health insurance. She’s been attending Scott’s forum since its inception decades ago. This year, however, she said the energy was different. 

“Something has got to be done,” Walker said, shaking her head. “The party is over, and it’s time for a change.”

READ MORE: Gov. Reeves announces 11th hour plan for hospital crisis. Opponents pan it as ‘too little, too Tate’

The post Brandon Presley again vows to expand Medicaid as Gov. Tate Reeves reiterates opposition appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In another attempt to insert local voices into the fixing of Jackson’s water system, city advocate groups filed a motion this week to intervene in the federal environmental lawsuit. 

Two local groups – The People’s Advocacy Institute and the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign – filed the motion this week to try and become parties to the case, which began last November following the city’s infamous water system collapse. The current parties are the U.S. Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Mississippi State Department of Health, and the City of Jackson.

The advocate groups are getting help from a large legal team, including the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU of Mississippi and Forward Justice. The National Resources Defense Council is also supporting the groups in an emergency petition they filed with the EPA last month. 

The groups’ sprawling concerns over how the water system is being handled include transparency from the current system manager – JXN Water, led by Ted Hedifin – and sending some of the historic influx of federal dollars towards local contractors.

“It is unconscionable that the federal government finally grants us hundreds of millions of dollars and there’s no requirement that these funds create employment for our residents,” Brooke Floyd of the Jackson People’s Assembly said in a press release. “This is one of the many reasons why we need a seat at the table.”

The groups have made a list of specific asks that include: 

• Assuring the public the return local control of the water system once Henifin leaves

• Requiring JXN Water to comply with public record and procurement laws
• Requiring regular community meetings, as well as input from the community over hiring and contracting decisions 
• Requiring monthly water system updates, versus the current quarterly requirement
• Requiring a community ombudsman to consult with JXN Water over important decisions
• Alerting residents of boil water notices in person, via text, e-mail, phone call and social media

“We’re in an age where people don’t get their information from one source,” said Rukia Lumumba, PAI’s Executive Director.

Advocates during a press conference Wednesday said residents aren’t receiving enough communication from JXN Water when experiencing poor water pressure or other issues, such as discoloration. 

Henifin, who has over 40 years of water system experience, has maintained that the city is complying with all water quality requirements. As far as pressure, JXN Water has repaired over 200 water line leaks, and its latest quarterly report says that only a few locations – Merit Health Hospital, some homes on Shannon Dale Road and the Henley Young Juvenile Detention Center – still have unreliable pressure, adding that solutions for those areas will take shape in the next quarter.

While the advocates’ motion to intervene went unopposed by both the city and the DOJ, the groups have already made many of the same requests to the presiding judge, who largely dismissed their concerns. 

At a July status conference, U.S. Judge Henry Wingate – who’s overseeing the case, and who put Henifin in temporary charge of the water system – heard in-person many of the comments echoed by the advocacy groups this week. Some of the speakers also pointed to a lack of local, Black leadership within JXN Water, and expressed concern that some of the larger contracts went to out-of-state vendors.

About 11% – or $2.65 million – of JXN Water’s spending has gone towards minority-owned contractors so far, according to the last quarterly report, and at least a few of those are local businesses. The largest contract so far was given to Texas-based Jacobs Engineering for about $10 million to staff the city’s water plants. The quarterly report added that while many services the water system requires are not available in Jackson, one of JXN Water’s goals is to create new small Black firms to meet those needs.

A week after the status conference, Wingate filed a response to the advocates where he panned them for bringing race up as a concern, arguing they were too concerned with the fact that Henifin is white and from out-of-state.  

“Overall, the presentations from Henifin’s critics were either uninformed, short-sighted, clearly political, well-intentioned but naïve, or (as earlier discussed) racist,” the judge wrote. 

Wingate pointed out that 90% of JXN Water’s 20-person team is Black. He largely dismissed the requests made for more transparency, and listed over 30 public appearances Henifin has made, adding that the manager plans to expand his public visibility. 

The judge also wrote that, through the hiring of a new call center — Protel Inc. in Rankin County — wait times for residents’ calls decreased dramatically, from over four hours when the city was handling calls to under two minutes on average.  

Some of the advocates who spoke at this week’s press conference took issue with the judge’s comments.

“This isn’t an attack on Mr. Henifin,” said Danyelle Holmes with MS-PCC. “This is not a Black or white issue. When the judge makes a statement that we just want someone Black to fix our water, that’s very disingenuous.” 

Others noted that many of the requests made at the July hearing went unaddressed in Wingate’s response. 

“We felt like it was unfortunate that he did not quite understand what we were trying to say,” said Makani Themba with the Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition. 

The groups now wait as they hope Wingate will grant their motion to formally intervene in the case.

While Henifin has said that JXN Water has been transparent with how it’s operating, he agrees there’s work to do to improve educating and communicating with the public.

Billing and water shutoffs

This week, Jackson residents received letters notifying them that water shutoffs would begin this fall for water customers who haven’t paid their bills.

“No customers have been turned off yet,” Henifin said in a statement.

At status hearings, Henifin has emphasized that getting customers to pay their bills, which includes restoring trust in the water they receive, is a crucial step to long-term funding for the water system.

The letter states that less than six of 10 customers are paying their bills. Henifin has estimated that thousands of properties are using the city’s water without an account. While JXN Water is installing new water meters throughout the city, about 10,000 customers don’t have new meters and their bills are being estimated based on the city’s average consumption, the letter adds.

Residents can go to JXN Water’s website or call 601-500-5200 to pay their bills, set up a payment plan, or access financial assistance.

The post Advocates attempt to intervene in Jackson water case, respond to judge’s criticism appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Only 8% of Mississippi school districts got a D or F on this year’s accountability grades, an even smaller percentage than last year.

The grades, released Thursday by the Mississippi Department of Education, are the state’s annual assessment of school quality based on state test performance, student growth from year to year, and graduation rates. Schools and districts did not receive grades in 2020 or 2021 because of the disruptions of the pandemic, receiving post-COVID grades for the first time last year.  

The 2022 grades saw many schools and districts significantly improving their accountability score from 2019, but education officials cautioned against year-to-year comparisons because of the impact of the pandemic on the data, making it possible that those improvements wouldn’t hold. 

Instead, most scores have remained the same or continued to improve, with even more districts moving up to the A or B categories. 

State law requires the cut scores for each letter grade to be raised when 65% of schools or districts are rated A or B, a benchmark the state hit for the first time this year. MDE officials said they will be looking into this in the coming months.

“I’m proud to say that Mississippi has resumed its momentum from before the pandemic,” said Raymond Morgigno, interim state superintendent of education. 

Morgigno said he was pleased to see proficiency on the state tests met pre-pandemic levels and was proud that schools were largely able to maintain their high growth scores. 

“Honestly we were a little concerned last year when we had such strong results, we thought that would be the COVID bump with some of our growth, but yet our schools maintained that,” he said. “So we were really proud to see, especially in our elementary schools, that they just continued to move forward.” 

Morgigno also said there were still a few lingering impacts of COVID testing waivers in this year’s data. MDE officials said they expect next year's accountability data to be the last year with any of those lingering impacts.

School districts have also received a significant cash infusion from the federal pandemic recovery funds, which have allowed them to invest in technology, tutoring programs, additional staff members and some building renovations. These funds are set to expire in the fall of 2024. 

READ MORE: How three Mississippi school districts are spending $207 million in federal relief funds

Morgigno expressed some concern that school performance will be impacted by the loss of those additional funds but said the state will not be lowering its standards. 

“We never want to get in the game of making excuses,” he said. “I think success breeds success and I don’t see anyone lowering their standards, we just may have to roll up our sleeves and work a little harder, but that’s kind of what we do here in Mississippi.” 

Accountability reports for each district will be available on the Mississippi Succeeds Report Card portal. 

The post School accountability scores are same or better than last year appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ruggedly handsome Bill Smith weighed 230 pounds and bench pressed 440 when he punted for Ole Miss in the mid-1980s. Punters aren’t often known for muscle, but Smith, a two-time All American, was one of the strongest Rebels.

Indeed, he was a college punter with the physique of an NFL linebacker. “Bill Smith was built like a Greek god. He might have been the strongest player on the team,” says Tim Bell, a student manager at the time.

In 1985, Smith, strictly a punter, was voted Ole Miss football MVP. How many times does that happen? A punter? MVP? And yet Smith, who came to Ole Miss from Little Rock, Ark, never kicked a single punt in the NFL.

When author Neil White and I were researching “The Mississippi Football Book,” Smith’s numbers jumped off the pages at us. He still holds the Southeastern Conference record for longest punt at 92 yards. He holds the NCAA record for most consecutive games with a punt of more than 50 yards at 32. In pregame warmups, he once booted a punt from the goal line at one end of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium that hit an Arkansas State player in the helmet at the other end of the field, 98 yards away. How in the world, White and I asked one another, did a punter of such astonishing ability not make a living in pro football? Has to be a story there, we surmised.

We surmised correctly. Pour yourself another cup of coffee. You will not believe where this story is headed.

Smith suffered a foot injury in training camp with the Green Bay Packers in 1987. The Pack cut him, and he signed on with the Tampa Bay Bucs. They cut him, too. His agent, a young Jimmy Sexton, just getting started in the business, lined up another tryout with the New England Patriots.

Smith declined. “I was tired of football,” he says all these years later. “I was ready to get on with the real world.” 

As it turns out, Smith’s real world was about to turn surreal.

Smith, you see, had taken a job with Union Pacific Railroad in Dallas. Smith was running several miles a day at the time and working out in the gym. He lost 30 pounds, down to 200. His face became more lean and chiseled. His high cheekbones became more defined. And, as Smith put it, “My abs had abs.”

He was walking through the St. Louis airport when a man, who turned out to be a Los Angeles fashion photographer, stopped him and asked if he had ever thought about modeling. “You’ve got the look,” the guy said. “You ought to think about it.”

Another guy approached him in his Dallas gym asking if he had ever modeled. That guy knew a modeling agent and urged Smith to give the agent a call. 

“What the heck,” Smith thought, and he called and set up a meeting. Long story short: The agent signed him on the spot.

That led to a trip to New York where Wilhelmina, one of the world’s most prominent modeling agencies, wanted to hire him full-time. Smith wasn’t so sure about that. He had a good job with the railroad. He was comfortable. But he did bring it up to his railroad boss, who told him, “You’ll always have a job here, but this opportunity seems to good to pass up. You’ve got give it a shot.”

Smith did. And the work – and the money – began to pour in.

“I spent my time shuttling back and forth between New York and Milan, and from Milan, I got work all over Europe,” Smith said. “I was doing runway modeling in New York and across Europe.”

He modeled men’s clothing. He posed for magazine covers for Men’s Health and Men’s Journal. He did photo shoots for cologne, for men’s suits, blue jeans, and lots of other apparel for men.

“I remember the first time I was walking down the street and saw myself in a big advertisement on the side of a bus. That stopped me dead in my tracks. Man, that was wild,” Smith said.

But that’s not the wildest.

At one point, his agency hooked him up with Harlequin, the publishing company that specializes in romance novels written primarily for women. Smith became the de factor cover boy for Harlequin.

“I posed for over 400 Harlequin book covers,” Smith said. “Would have been more but all those were done in New York and I was spending so much time in Europe.”

An illustrator would come up with an idea for the cover. Smith, usually bare-chested, and a female model would then pose for photos, and, finally, an artist would do a cover illustration from the photos.

In 2001, tired of living out of suitcases and constantly jetting across oceans and continents, Smith retired from modeling and planned on moving back to Dallas. But then he visited his sister in Denver, fell in love with the Rocky Mountains and moved there. He found a good job in mortgage lending, met his future wife and they have raised a son. 

At 58, Smith, an Ole Miss M Club Hall of Famer, remains a diehard Rebel fan, watches all the Rebels games on TV and returns to Oxford for football weekends at least once.a season. He remains a workout junkie, often biking 50 miles at a time. He said he feels like he is 58 going on 30.

“I would say I have lived an interesting life,” Smith said, making it clear he can’t wait to live the rest of it.

Which did he enjoy most: football or modeling?

“Hard to choose one over the other,” he answered. “I just feel so blessed to have done both.”

The post What became of Ole Miss All American punter Bill Smith? So glad you asked. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Sept. 28, 1868

A massacre took place in Opelousas, Louisiana, one of the worst outbreaks of violence during Reconstruction. When some Black Americans attempted to join the Democratic Party, the Knights of the White Camelia (a white supremacist organization) rushed in to drive them out. 

School teacher Emerson Bentley was one of the few white Republicans in the region. He had come to Louisiana to help Black Americans vote and find jobs. The 18-year-old was also an editor for the Republican newspaper, The St. Landry Progress. 

Displeased by their depiction, a mob severely beat Bentley. A group of Black Americans moved to rescue him, not knowing that he had already escaped. Of the 29 black men captured by the mob, 27 of them were killed, and the bloodshed continued for weeks. The death toll reached 250, the vast majority of them Black Americans. 

Through the Opelousas Massacre and similar acts of violence, “lynching became routinized in Louisiana, a systematic way by which whites sought to assert white supremacy in response to African-American resistance,” historian Michael Pfeifer told Smithsonian magazine. The years following Reconstruction led to a vicious wave of lynchings, not only in the South, but across the U.S.

The post On this day in 1868 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

While Mississippians ride down the highway or stream their favorite TV show, they might spot a jarring digital ad with Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’s face connected to an obviously fake body sporting a set of chiseled six-pack abs.

“Show us your six-pack, Tate,” the TV ad’s narrator said. “Our tax dollars paid for it.” 

The message is a reference to Reeves’ friend and former fitness trainer, Paul Lacoste, who received over $1 million in federal welfare funds to promote a fitness program that state investigators believe he should have never received.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves inspired welfare payment targeted in civil suit, texts show

The first-term governor denies having any role in steering the welfare dollars toward Lacoste, who is also a defendant in an ongoing civil lawsuit filed by the state to claw back the misspent welfare dollars.

The clearly altered image may leave a comical and indelible impression on viewers, but the underlying tone and strategy are larger than the photoshopped image and message. 

The group responsible for the advertisement — the first apparent independent ad campaign of the 2023 governor’s race — is the New Southern Majority Independent Expenditure PAC, an affiliate of the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. The group has invested more than $112,000 in the statewide election this year, making it one of the first outside groups to run ads in the Mississippi governor’s race. 

Brandon Jones, a former Democratic Mississippi lawmaker and the director of political campaigns for the SPLC, told Mississippi Today that the legal nonprofit recently decided to launch a PAC in the Deep South to further the organization’s goals of promoting policies that help marginalized communities. 

“We’ve just increasingly come to realize that it didn’t matter how good we were at filing lawsuits or how good we were at lobbying … if the elected officials on the other side of that were immovable, we were committing political malpractice by not engaging with that part of the equation,” Jones said. 

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, no relation to Brandon Jones, also serves on the board for the PAC to guide the leaders on how it can support progressive candidates in Southern states. 

Since its inception last year, the group has largely focused on local races such as school boards and state prosecutors, but it opted to focus on Mississippi’s gubernatorial race this year, according to Brandon Jones, because it believes the crucial election signals a crossroad for the Magnolia State. 

“From our perspective, Gov. Reeves is the perfect example of why groups like ours exist,” Jones said. “He’s done nothing to improve the lives of people who desperately need their government to perform.” 

The action fund and its affiliate PAC cannot coordinate their strategies with a particular candidate, but they can run ads to oppose a particular candidate or issue, such as Reeves and the state’s welfare scandal.

The PAC launched a website, tanftate.com, to serve as a central hub for its ads and a source of information on how it believes the first-term governor is connected to the scandal, the group’s central focus so far.

Jones said the organization is creating new ads and plans to use them to interact with voters through the date of the statewide election. Reeves will compete against Democratic nominee Brandon Presley in the general election on Nov. 7. 

The post Who’s behind the ‘TANF Tate’ TV and billboard ads? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

For the first time in Mississippi’s history, a runoff election could determine the outcome of the governor’s race.

For more than a century, the state’s 1890 constitution required candidates for statewide office to accomplish two things to be seated: receive a majority of the votes cast in the election and win a majority of the state’s individual House districts.

If no candidate cleared both hurdles, the race was thrown to the state House of Representatives, where House members were under no obligation to vote according to the wishes of their constituents.

The authors of the 133-year-old constitution wrote the provision during the Jim Crow era with the intention of making it harder for Black candidates to win elected office.

But in 2020, after a federal judge strongly suggested the state change the constitutional provision, a majority of state lawmakers and the state’s voters decided to remove it for good.

READ MORE: For the first time in state history, voters remove Jim Crow provision from Mississippi Constitution

When Mississippians voted to scrap the provision in 2020, they also replaced it with the requirement that a candidate must earn only a majority of the votes cast to be elected. And now, if no candidate gets 50% of the vote on Election Day, the top two vote-getters move to a runoff election decided by voters.

This year, the first major statewide election cycle since the 2020 constitutional change, a runoff is possible for the current governor’s race.

Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves is running for reelection, and he faces a strong challenge from Democrat Brandon Presley. But Gwendolyn Gray, an independent candidate, will also appear as a third option on the ballot alongside the two major party candidates. 

Gray, a resident of the north Mississippi town of Sturgis, is a political newcomer. In her first interview of 2023, she told Mississippi Today this week that she realizes it will be next to impossible for her to win the governor’s race, and she’s concerned about the prospect of a runoff election. 

Instead, the 58-year-old candidate said she’s planning to meet with her supporters next month and tell them which type of candidate they should vote, though she remained cryptic about the details of the future meeting.

“I want to tell them how important it is for them to vote and vote their conscience,” Gray said of her supporters. “I will definitely tell them, at this point, it is very difficult for me to win. I do not want to stop anyone else from winning.” 

Election candidates, including third-party challengers, typically try to convince voters to elect them to public office. But Gray, instead, appears to be taking a different approach to campaigning.

Making matters even more curious, Gray said in the interview that she recently tried reaching out to one of the two candidates running for governor to share some of her concerns, but she received no response. 

She declined to say which of the two candidates she tried to contact or what she specifically planned to discuss with them.

“I want some of my issues to be a concern of theirs,” Gray said.

If Gray’s presence on the Nov. 7 ballot triggers a runoff, it would be a major shakeup in the race for who occupies the Governor’s Mansion for the next four years.

Four years ago, Reeves won a first term as governor with just 52.2% of the popular vote — a few thousands votes more than the 50% threshold he’d need to overcome in 2023. And this year, several public polls show that Reeves, who has battled popularity problems during his first term as governor, is hovering around the 50% mark.

An August Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed Reeves leading Presley by 52% to 41%, but no other public poll released this year has shown Reeves hitting 50%.

Presley, as the underdog, would undoubtedly attempt to capitalize on the extra three weeks of campaigning and use it as an opportunity to showcase a wounded incumbent to build a case that donors should contribute more money to his race. 

And if Reeves, a Republican in a conservative Deep South state, cannot garner an outright majority of the votes cast on the first ballot, it could stand to weaken his political power and force him to burn through more money in his lofty campaign account.

Marvin King, an associate professor of political science at the University of Mississippi, told Mississippi Today that if the race does head to a runoff, it would still likely benefit Reeves instead of Presley.

“A runoff tends to skew toward older voters and more reliable voters, and those voters in this state tend to be Republican,” King said. 

And while King believes a runoff would be a good opportunity for Presley to draw down even more fundraising dollars, he believes conservative organizations such as the Republican Governors Association would be willing spend more money to protect a Republican governor in Mississippi than progressive organizations would. 

“Brandon Presley needs a knockout because because Gov. Reeves has a money advantage,” King said. 

Absentee voting is currently underway for the election between the three candidates, and the general election will take place on Nov. 7. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, a runoff election will happen on Nov. 28 — the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s 2023 Voter Guide

The post Could the 2023 governor’s race be decided by a runoff? For the first time in state history, it’s possible. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s suicide rate in 2021 reached its highest level in 20 years, based on the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System.

Mississippi’s age-adjusted suicide death rate for 2021 – the rate that controls for differences in population age distribution – was 16.18 deaths per 100,000 people compared to the national rate of 14.04. 

“These are someone’s loved ones. Someone’s child. Someone’s sibling. Someone’s spouse or partner,” Meghan Goldbeck, executive director of the Louisiana and Mississippi Chapters of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told Mississippi Today. “Suicide just devastates families, and it’s really horrible.” 

The state’s rates remained below 15 deaths from 2016 to 2020. The lowest rate for the state was in 2016 at 12.68, slightly below the national rate of 13.46.

Based on the CDC data, 480 Mississippians took their own lives in 2021 an increase from 410 in 2020. Deaths by suicide increased nationwide, as well, with over 48,000 people taking their lives in 2021 compared to nearly 46,000 the previous year. 

Suicide deaths in the state totaled 10,007 years of potential life lost in 2021, according to the CDC. 

“In our state, we know we are not immune to the challenges faced by people who wrestle with thoughts of suicide. Yet, we also know we are a community that honors the values of compassion, resilience and the unshakeable belief in brighter tomorrows,” Wendy Bailey, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, told Mississippi Today. 

Bailey said the department has a suicide prevention training initiative called “Shatter the Silence.” Training is offered to youth, older adults, military, law enforcement and first responders, postpartum mothers, faith-based youth, faith-based adults, correction officers and general adults.

Trainings vary from topics about stigma related to mental illness, resources to help someone with a mental illness, warning signs for suicide, and what to and not to do when someone has suicidal thoughts. 

Over 10,000 people were trained in Shatter the Silence during fiscal year 2023, with two-thirds of participants involved in the youth training. 

Bailey said the department wants to bring suicide discussions and resources to the forefront to provide hope for those impacted, for “hope is the lifeline that can save lives.”

Based on separate data from 2020, more than half of Mississippians who died by suicide used firearms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Fatal Injury and Violence Data. 

Firearms accounted for more than 70% of all suicide deaths across various age groups in the state. The next most common methods were suffocation (including hanging) at about 23% and poisoning (including drug overdose) at nearly 5%.

Mississippians aged 30-34 had the highest numbers of suicides at 47 in 2020. Forty-six people aged 25-29 died by suicide.   

According to the CDC’s top 10 Leading Causes of Death for 2020, deaths by suicide in Mississippi were the: 

• Third leading cause of death for people ages 15-24 with nearly 75% of deaths by firearms. 

• Third leading cause of death for people ages 25-34 with almost three-fifths of deaths resulting in fatalities by firearms.

• Sixth leading cause of death for people ages 35-44 with almost 70% of deaths due to firearms. 

• Eighth leading cause of death for people ages 45-54 with over half of suicide deaths resulting in firearms. 

Goldbeck said the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and its chapter in Mississippi aim to spread suicide prevention education on risk factors and warning signs across the state.  

She said it is necessary to reach people in all demographics because “suicide affects every single on of us.”

In the state, Black individuals’ suicide numbers slightly increased from 70 in 2019 to 73 in 2020. White people experienced a drop from 360 to 333 deaths in 2020.

For American Indians/Alaskan Natives and Asains, the data was recognized as “unstable values,” meaning the number of deaths was less than 20.

“I think we are moving toward a society that is expanding their knowledge about mental health, but it’s really going to take the community coming together for each other,” Goldbeck said.

From the Mississippi Department of Mental Health: If you or someone you love is having thoughts of suicide or mental distress, call or text 988, or chat online at 988lifeline.org. Communications are confidential, and a trained counselor can connect you to resources.

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