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Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.

Jack Fairchilds is a household name for many Mississippians who closely follow conservative politics.

Fairchild’s radio show earned him a sizable following during state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s three statewide runs, including earlier this year when the far-right lawmaker challenged but ultimately lost to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in the August Republican primary.

Ahead of the Nov. 7 governor’s race between Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley, Fairchilds devoted an entire episode to a couple questions that many political observers have asked: Is Reeves in trouble with conservative voters? And if so, could that pave the way for a Presley upset?

Here is just a sampling of what Fairchilds said Oct. 20 on his hour-long episode, which he titled “To Tate or Not To Tate, That Is The Question”:

• Fairchilds said Reeves didn’t do enough to help McDaniel in the 2023 Republican primary: “One of the things that has a lot of voters frustrated out there was that during the primary, he didn’t do more to help Chris McDaniel defeat Delbert Hosemann … despite the fact that Chris got him elected four years ago. That’s a cause of concern for a lot of conservatives … I think there are a lot of folks out there who are still disheartened by the way that election went … they feel like maybe it’s best to let the entire party and state burn. Stay at home, vote for Brandon Presley, do whatever it is they feel they need to do to ensure that they have shown a punishment to the Republican Party for putting forth Delbert Hosemann.”

• He pointed out Reeves reneged on his vow to let voters, not politicians, decide whether to change the state flag: “On a debate stage four years ago, Tate Reeves told the people that he felt like the citizens of Mississippi should be the ones to decide the flag and that he wouldn’t act against it without the people voting on it. Then during this whole flag debate, in which the flag got changed in the Legislature, Tate famously tweeted out, ‘Send me a bill and I’ll sign it.’ That is a far cry from the stance that he took before. There are a lot of conservatives out there left scratching their heads right now going, ‘Huh. He’s telling me he won’t expand Medicaid, he’s telling me he won’t raise the gas tax. He won’t do this, he won’t do that. But he also told me he wouldn’t take away my right to vote on the flag, yet he did.’ That decision is haunting him … it is a real factor for a large number of Mississippi voters. Some of them would rather watch the thing burn than reward someone they view as a liar.”

• He said conservative voters feel frustrated about the current state of politics: “I don’t think we can hand the state over to Brandon Presley. I think he’s a bad actor. But at the same time, if conservatives continue to show up and (help) out those who only give us lip service every four years, then what are we gaining? What are we gaining if the Republican Party, for a majority of their term, is governing like Democrats anyways? What are we gaining for bailing out another one of the establishment’s chosen candidates? That’s the real question here. Do you trust Tate Reeves to keep his word on promises? It’s a hard question to answer.”

• He said many voters just don’t like Reeves as much as Presley: “This is not a slam on the governor, but it’s just an honest observation: Tate doesn’t come across as a likable individual. And when you see him on TV ads, they don’t really help him. But when you see Brandon Presley on TV, there’s something more about him that comes across more likable than Tate … if you’re just a voter that knows the names and are seeing the ads, I don’t think Tate comes across as likable as Brandon does.”

• He said conservative voters may prefer to choose to let Reeves lose than support him: “They’re thinking that maybe the only path forward for conservatism is to let the left have it for now, at least for the next four years. They don’t trust Tate Reeves, and quite frankly, I don’t think he’s done enough to earn back their trust. I understand why people feel that way … it’s hard for me to say they’re wrong because I get it. I get the hopelessness. I get the frustration.”

These sentiments shared by Fairchilds, while certainly the most frank and public so far this cycle, are obviously not news to Reeves or his campaign. For months, the governor has spent millions of dollars on his top campaign objective: reminding voters how conservative he is and how liberal Presley is.

If you see a Reeves TV ad — and there are many of them — pay attention to use of the word “conservative” or overt efforts to paint himself as the fighter against Presley’s “liberal ideas” or ones from California, New York and Washington, D.C. In the past week alone, the Reeves campaign has posted the word “conservative” in nine separate tweets.

And in early October, Reeves went to extraordinary lengths to address these same concerns directly with conservative voters. Mississippi Today’s Taylor Vance reported that the governor attended a closed-door meeting on Oct. 2 with several DeSoto County conservatives and answered questions from them about his decisions the past few years.

Among the topics that came up, meeting organizer Don Abernathy told Mississippi Today: McDaniel’s challenge of Hosemann in the 2023 Republican primary, the state flag, and how Reeves would work with a Republican legislative supermajority. All three of those topics, certainly not coincidentally, were also focuses of Fairchilds on his Oct. 20 radio show.

At several points during the show, Fairchilds said conservative voters were considering a number of options ahead of the Nov. 7 election — including staying home or even voting for Presley.

“They’re thinking that maybe the only path forward for conservatism is to let the left have it for now, at least for the next four years. They don’t trust Tate Reeves, and quite frankly, I don’t think he’s done enough to earn back the trust,” Fairchilds said. “… Is it better to sink the ship so that they’ll take us a little more seriously? Is it better to burn the whole thing to the ground? And that’s the question I don’t have the answer to at the moment.

“… Those people, if they stay home or vote for Presley out of spite, could wake up and be witnessing an upset in the Mississippi governor’s race.”

Headlines From The Trail

Gov. Tate Reeves walks away when asked about working Mississippians who need health care

Gov. Tate Reeves supported fully funding public education before he was against it

‘I ain’t ashamed anymore’: poverty and tragedy led Elvis Presley’s cousin to run for Mississippi governor

Democrat Brandon Presley seeks big turnout in Nov. 7 bid to unseat Mississippi’s Republican governor

What We’re Watching

1) The final campaign finance reports are due on Tuesday, meaning Mississippi voters will get one last peek at how much money Reeves and Presley have raised and spent before the Nov. 7 election. The last report showed Presley outraised Reeves fairly substantially, though Reeves had more cash on hand to spend.

2) The first and only debate between Reeves and Presley is Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. It’ll be broadcast live on WAPT in Jackson, streaming on WAPT’s website, and simulcast by Mississippi Public Broadcasting television and radio stations.

3) If you’re in the Jackson metro area on Nov. 1, come to Hal & Mal’s for a free Mississippi Today watch party. Doors open at 6 p.m., we’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host a few minutes of live analysis as soon as it ends. Click this link for more information. We hope to see you there!

The post ‘They don’t trust Tate Reeves’: Radio host explains why conservative voters are struggling with governor’s race appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today governmental reporter Taylor Vance previews what to expect during next Wednesday’s Gubernatorial Debate.

You can meet him and the rest of the Mississippi Today staff next Wednesday when Mississippi Today presents the 2023 Gubernatorial Debate Watch Party. We will be livestreaming the debate between gubernatorial candidates Gov. Tate Reeves and Brandon Presley on Wednesday, November 1. Join us at Hal & Mal’s in downtown Jackson for a live analysis with Mississippi Today journalists immediately following the debate, a live drawing with Marshall Ramsey during the debate, and a special menu and drinks available for purchase.

Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Hal & Mal’s in downtown Jackson
Doors at 6:00 p.m. | Debate at 7:00 p.m. sharp!

It’s FREE, but registration on Eventbrite is encouraged.

The post Mississippi Stories: Taylor Vance appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Oct. 29, 1869

Klansmen kidnapped and savagely beat Georgia legislator Abram Colby, leaving him for dead. 

Freed 15 years before emancipation, he became an early organizer of Black Americans. A Radical Republican, he represented Greene County in 1865 at a convention for freed African Americans and was elected to the Georgia Legislature a year later. 

In 1869, the Ku Klux Klan offered him a $7,500 bribe to not run for re-election, but he refused. “I told them that I would not do it if they would give me all the county was worth,” he recalled. 

These Klansmen were hardly impoverished white men, he said. “Some are first-class men in our town. One is a lawyer, one a doctor, and some are farmers.” 

During his whipping, they asked him, “Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?” When he answered yes, the beating became even more severe. 

“They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them,” he recalled. Although he survived, he was unable to work or hold office. Three years later, he testified before a joint House and Senate committee investigating reports of Southern violence, detailing what had happened. 

“The worst thing was my mother, wife and daughter were in the room when they came,” he recalled. “My little daughter begged them not to carry me away. They drew up a gun and actually frightened her to death. She never got over it until she died. That was the part that grieves me the most.”

The post On this day in 1869 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The views of the candidates for governor — Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley — are as different as night and day on fully funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which provides the state’s share of the basics to operate local schools.

In response to questions from The Parents’ Campaign, a public education advocacy organization, Presley recently said: “I agree MAEP should be fully funded. I believe that Mississippi students deserve a world-class education, and that starts with fully funding public education and making sure that every classroom is safe and clean and has a great educator with modern resources. We don’t know the potential of our state because we’ve never funded our public schools enough to realize our potential.”

Throughout his tenure as governor and lieutenant governor, Reeves has placed obstacles to full funding. He has argued MAEP, which was adopted in 1997, is a flawed program and should be scrapped because it provides too much money for administration instead of the classroom.

“The reality is that the funding formula as it currently exists has encouraged and incentivized more and more spending on administration and not as much spending in the classroom,” Reeves said of the MAEP funding formula. “Whatever the mechanism is to get more money in the classroom, that’s what I’m going to support.”

But when the state Senate earlier this year introduced legislation that could have been a vehicle to address some of the problems that Reeves claimed existed within the funding formula, the governor opposed those efforts.

And before, when he was lieutenant governor, Reeves led an unsuccessful effort to repeal the MAEP and replace it with another school funding formula.

The proposal supported by Reeves allowed legislative leaders to determine how much local school districts needed to operate. Under MAEP, the amount of funding school districts need is determined by averaging how much money is spent by districts deemed to be adequate or average based on state rankings. Those average school districts that spend the most and those that spend the least are thrown out and not used in calculating the funding formula. But under state law, the formula is tilted toward discarding from the calculation more high spending districts than low sending districts.

The theory is that the MAEP funding formula ensures an adequate level of funding, if fully funded, instead of leaving it to legislative leaders to fund education at any level they deem appropriate.

Reeves also was a leader in 2015 of the successful effort to defeat ballot Initiative 42, which would have strengthened the state’s commitment to public education in the Mississippi Constitution making it more difficult for lawmakers to not fully fund the Adequate Education Program.

Surprisingly, Reeves has not always been opposed to fully funding MAEP. In 2011, Reeves, then state treasurer and a candidate for lieutenant governor, voiced support for full funding.

“It may take more than two legislative sessions, but yes, I do support full funding for MAEP,” Reeves told the Jackson Free Press at the time.

But as lieutenant governor and later as governor, Reeves never made the effort to fully fund MAEP, despite state surplus funds of about $4 billion going into the 2023 session alone.

In his first year as lieutenant governor after stating his goal to fully fund MAEP, the program was underfunded by about $260 million. The second year of Reeves’ tenure as lieutenant governor, it was underfunded by about $265 million.

MAEP has been underfunded a cumulative $2.97 billion during Reeves’ two terms as lieutenant governor and as his first term as governor draws to a close.

A significant portion of the Legislature has, like Reeves, opposed full funding. But based on polling, a significant portion of the electorate supports full funding.

In a Siena College/Mississippi Today poll of registered voters earlier this year, an overwhelming 79% said they favored fully funding MAEP, “the formula that sends state money to local schools for basic school needs.” Those basic school needs include, of course, teacher salaries.

By contrast, according to the poll that was conducted in March:

• 75% favor expanding Medicaid to provide health care to low income families.
• 71% support restoring the initiative that was ruled invalid by the state Supreme Court to allow voters to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot.
• 60% favor allowing new mothers who qualify for Medicaid while pregnant to remain on Medicaid for one year instead of two months.

Reeves is not the first politician to change his mind or not keep his commitment to MAEP funding. Since the program was fully enacted in 2003, it has been fully funded twice even though every governor since then has at some point voiced support for full funding.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves supported fully funding public education before he was against it appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.

Gov. Tate Reeves has long struggled to justify his opposition to Medicaid expansion.

Numerous economic experts say the expansion program would bring $1.5 billion in new revenue to Mississippi in year one, create more than 10,000 new jobs per year, and provide health insurance to at least 200,000 working Mississippians who can’t otherwise afford it. The financial benefits to the state, the economists project, would more than cover the state’s share of the expansion program’s costs. 

Forty other states, including numerous Republican-led ones, have expanded Medicaid to great success.

But Reeves has blocked it for years. And as he’s running for reelection in 2023, he’s struggling to explain his rationale on the issue that would help so many Mississippians who need it, that an overwhelming majority of voters support, that hospital leaders have begged for, and that his Democratic opponent Brandon Presley has made central to his 2023 campaign.

Here’s the exchange from Thursday on the campaign trail, which occurred at the end of an interview gaggle with reporters:

Ross Adams, WAPT-TV reporter: “What do you say to working class people — people working at McDonald’s and Walmart who can’t afford private health insurance who could benefit from Medicaid expansion?”

Gov. Tate Reeves: “What I would say to you is we are going to continue to work to invest in creating more jobs in our state. We’re going to continue to work to create more opportunities in our state. We’re going to continue to invest in our people.”

Adams: “What about the people—”

Reeves: “We’re going to continue to invest in our people. We’re going to continue to invest in our people through workforce development and workforce training because we want upward mobility for our people. Having a job matters. Having a job brings dignity and respect — upward mobility, not only for the parents but for their kids, as well, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

The governor then put a hand between himself and Adams, uttered a quick “thank y’all very much” and walked away from reporters. Video of the exchange has been seen by tens of thousands of people on social media.

Reeves, serving his first term in the Governor’s Mansion and seeking a second this November, is hardly the first governor to care about job creation. One could argue a governor’s most important job is selling the state to employers, and Reeves’ focus there is a worthy one.

But a major reason Reeves has struggled defending his stance on Medicaid expansion is because job creation on its own is not a working solution to the health care challenges so many face. If it were, the state’s health outcomes would have long been improved and more people would have the ability to afford trips to the doctor.

The reality is that today, thousands of jobs available to Mississippians — among the poorest, unhealthiest and least educated people in America — are just like the ones the governor was asked about on Thursday. They don’t offer health insurance, and they don’t pay enough to lift people out of staggering financial difficulties.

Data from the state’s employment agency, which Reeves as governor directly oversees, tells it all.

Take, for instance, the McDonald’s workers that Reeves was asked about this week. “Food preparation and serving related occupations” is the fourth-most common in Mississippi as of April 2023. More than 105,000 Mississippians — almost 10% of the state’s entire workforce — hold these jobs. Another 37,000 Mississippians are counted in “fast food” job categories. Very, very few of the employers in these industries offer health insurance to their employees.

The average hourly wage for food service workers in Mississippi is $11.43. If those workers put in 40 hours per week, they’d make $1,828.80 per month before taxes, or $23,780 per year. Factoring in rent, groceries, gas and other necessary expenses, that’s barely enough to survive, let alone afford private health insurance. That annual pre-tax salary is actually under the federal poverty line if the household has more than two people in it.

But despite all those factors, the food service worker who makes $23,780 annually does not qualify for Medicaid under Mississippi’s current program. They make too much, according to the state’s policymakers, to qualify for the government program. But if those leaders chose to expand Medicaid, that same working person would qualify for government-paid health care coverage.

Reeves, though, has never publicly acknowledged these realities. He’s instead chosen to dwell only on his focus on economic development and job creation. He wants working people who are barely scraping by to go out and learn new skills, find better paying jobs that offer health insurance and lift themselves out of an impossible position. It’s not a terrible hope to have for people, but it’s a completely unrealistic one — especially if you’re not providing them all the help you have at your disposal.

On the same day Reeves literally walked away from an earnest conversation about this problem, Presley laid out a completely different message when asked about the issue.

“(Medicaid expansion) is common sense for us to do in Mississippi … I’m most concerned about the 230,000 Mississippians who don’t have access to health care,” Presley told reporters at the same event. “… Tate Reeves insults working people by saying they’re on welfare. He insults people who sack groceries for a living, he insults people who roof for a living. He wouldn’t take those jobs, but he insults those people who are out working. He calls it welfare. That’s how out of touch he is.”

Reeves, with holes in his logic and an unwillingness to even acknowledge the reality so many Mississippians face, is teeing up Presley perfectly on this issue. How might voters respond in November?

Headlines From The Trail

Several GOP consultants share predictions about runoff between Tate Reeves, Brandon Presley

Mississippi labor unions rally for Brandon Presley ahead of governor’s race

Elvis Presley’s cousin is getting Mississippi voters all shook up

Inside the Democratic Party’s coordinated effort to turn out Black voters for the Nov. 7 election

How a Tate Reeves victory would place him in Mississippi history books

What We’re Watching

1) Debate, debate, debate. Voters have been calling for it for months, and on Nov. 1, they’re going to get it. If you’re wondering how it might go, read some of the quotes from Reeves and Presley about one another from Thursday’s annual Hobnob event. Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender has the full story.

2) If you’re in the Jackson metro area on Nov. 1, come to Hal & Mal’s for a Mississippi Today watch party. We’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host some live analysis as soon as it ends. We hope to see you there!

3) “The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.” The Robert Earl Keen classic is a great road trip tune, but the second part of the line is probably getting left off by the candidates and campaigns this weekend. Reeves and Presley continue to tear up the trail, with both scheduled to touch essentially all corners of the state over the next few days.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves walks away when asked about working Mississippians who need health care appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Debate Prep appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Leaders of some of the state’s organized labor unions, a traditional bedrock of Democratic Party activism, encouraged their members on Saturday to support Brandon Presley’s campaign for governor.

Speaking near the state Capitol on Saturday, Robert Shaffer, president of the Mississippi branch of the AFL-CIO, said members should vote for Presley because he supports issues such as restoring the state’s ballot initiative and has listened to concerns the unions have raised in the past. 

“He’s a been there, down to earth guy,” Shaffer said of Presley. 

Several organized labor groups have endorsed Presley, a Democrat, and donated money to his campaign, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Presley, in return, has not shied away from the organizations and even touted them at the Saturday event.

“When we see the union label, it means American made,” Presley said. 

Mississippi, like many Deep South states, is a right-to-work state, which means participation in any union is voluntary and cannot be made a condition of employment. As a general rule, employment is at will, meaning that an employer can terminate an employee for any reason with a few exceptions. 

The Democratic candidate said Saturday his plans to reduce the state’s grocery tax, the highest such tax in the nation and reduce taxes for car tags would benefit the union members. 

He acknowledged, however, the Republican-dominated Legislature likely would not support efforts to repeal the state’s right-to-work law and remain skeptical of some labor reforms. 

“I’m not oblivious to the fact that Mississippi’s not going to create a Department of Labor or overnight become an organized labor state,” Presley said. “But I believe organized labor should have a fair chance to voice their concerns on issues.” 

Shaffer, the labor leader, also said members should not support Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ bid for reelection because he remained opposed to expanding Medicaid to the working poor. 

“What he’s done is left out the middle class trying to work for $7 or $8 an hour with no insurance,” Shaffer said. “In return, the only way they can get any help is to go to the emergency room, and they can’t pay the bills.”

Reeves, Presley’s Republican opponent, is one of the leading critics of Medicaid expansion and reiterated his opposition to the policy on Thursday morning to reporters at the Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob event. 

The governor said the state’s health care system could not sustain adding more people to Medicaid rolls, and he instead believes the solution to Mississippi’s low health insurance rate is to recruit more jobs to the state.

“We are going to continue to work to create more opportunities in our state,” Reeves said. “We’re going to continue to invest in our people through workforce development and workforce training because we want upward mobility for our people.” 

Francine Thompson, a senior field representative for the national AFL-CIO, told Mississippi Today on Saturday that volunteers from some of the labor groups are calling and visiting homes of other labor organization members, called “labor-to-labor canvassing,” on behalf of Presley. 

Over the next 10 days, they plan to strategically target people in Gulfport, Jackson, Marshall County and Tunica County. 

Certain Mississippians can cast in-person absentee ballots at county circuit clerk’s offices from now until Nov. 4, and the general election between Reeves and Presley will take place on Nov. 7. 

The post Mississippi labor unions rally for Brandon Presley ahead of governor’s race appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Oct. 28, 1798

Abolitionist Levi Coffin was born in North Carolina. His home in Newport, Indiana, became known as the “Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.” 

In 1821, his cousin ran a Sunday school for Black Americans, but when slaveholders rebelled against this, the school was forced to close. After he and his family moved to Indiana, he began working on the Underground Railroad. 

“The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book,” he said. “I thought it was always safe to do right.” 

He helped thousands of Black Americans find freedom, and after the Civil War ended, he became a leader in the Western Freedmen’s Aid Society, raising more than $100,000 (the equivalent of $2.66 million) in a single year for African Americans who needed food, clothing, funds and education. His autobiography, “Reminiscences of Levi Coffin,” was published a year before his 1877 death. 

In 1902, a 6-foot monument was built to mark his grave, and his former home became a National Historic Landmark.

The post On this day in 1798 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.

OXFORD — The buzz of the annual “Good Ole Boys and Gals” political event on Thursday wasn’t the stump speeches from high-profile politicians ahead of the Nov. 7 statewide election. It wasn’t the big season Ole Miss football is having, and it wasn’t even the sweet-smelling BBQ chicken.

It was Gov. Tate Reeves’ poll numbers and the growing likelihood of a Nov. 28 gubernatorial runoff between Reeves and his Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.

One consultant at the event who is not affiliated with the Reeves campaign said they had reviewed a recent poll that showed the incumbent governor several points under 50%. A significant portion of voters, the source said, remained undecided or said they will cast votes for Gwendolyn Gray, an independent candidate.

“There have been several polls in the last 10 days that almost guarantee he’ll be in a runoff election,” the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly, said. “I would think the Democrats are smelling blood in the water.” 

Gray has publicly announced that she is no longer seeking the office and supporting Presley. Her announcement, however, came too late because state officials had already printed ballots, so her presence on the ballot created a runoff probability. 

If no candidate on the general election ballot receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will participate in a runoff election on Nov. 28, just five days after Thanksgiving.

Another consultant at the event said they had also reviewed recent polling numbers and doubted if Reeves could garner an outright majority on the first ballot, though they declined to share the specific numbers.

“I’ve crunched the numbers, and anyway you slice it, I’d be preparing for a runoff if I was them,” they said of the Reeves campaign. 

A third consultant speculated that while the governor hasn’t hit the 50% mark in some public polls, they don’t believe it will actually translate into a runoff scenario on Election Day. They believe undecided voters will get Reeves over 50%.

With insiders digesting poll numbers, baked beans and coleslaw at the event on Thursday, it was notable that so many attendees were openly speculating about the fact an incumbent Republican governor in a reliably red state may not win on the first ballot.

Reeves, in his speech to the event’s attendees, did not directly mention the runoff possibility, but he appeared to hint at the trouble he’s had reaching 50%. In his stump speech — well, technically a “bench speech” as the candidates at the event stand on an old, wooden bench — he said the only way he could win the general election is “if conservatives show up to the polls.” 

“I’m proud of the fact that we’re winning in every poll out there, even in the ones where they fake the outcome,” Reeves said. “But none of those polls matter. The only poll that matters is the one that’s taken on Election Day.”

One person who was noticeably absent was Presley, who currently represents Oxford as north Mississippi’s public service commissioner and has attended the event in previous years. John Morgan, one of the event’s organizers and an Oxford alderman, told attendees that Presley’s campaign initially indicated they would come and participate, but he did not show. 

Reeves seized on Presley’s absence at the festival, located in the Democrat’s home turf of north Mississippi and roughly an hour away from his hometown of Nettleton. 

“I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not at all surprised that my opponent didn’t have the guts to show up in north Mississippi tonight,” Reeves said. “He’s probably in California or New York meeting with billionaires who are funding his campaign.” 

Presley, in a statement to Mississippi Today, did not address his absence but criticized  Reeves’ rhetoric.

“Tate Reeves talks real tough and acts real wimpy,” Presley said. “I look forward to cleaning his clock across my home region of North Mississippi on Election Day where I’ve been elected four times.” 

Partisan brinkmanship may have been on display between the two candidates for governor, but there were unifying moments on Thursday to mark the death of Johnny Morgan, a former state lawmaker who first organized “Good Ole Boys and Gals”  in the mid-1980s. 

Morgan, a notable entrepreneur who was a cousin to the Oxford alderman, died in a plane crash in June and was widely viewed as a political powerbroker. House Speaker Philip Gunn, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Reeves all paid tribute to Johnny Morgan in their speeches.

Headlines From The Trail

How a Tate Reeves victory would place him in Mississippi history books

Medicaid’s managed care contracts at a standstill after two companies cry foul

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann calls for free community college tuition

Gubernatorial candidates throw punches from the podium at annual Hobnob forum

Republican operatives sound every alarm on current trajectory of 2023 governor’s race

What We’re Watching

1) A lecture series continues today at Galloway United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson. Galloway, the home church of Gov. Tate Reeves, is hosting faith leaders who will advocate for Medicaid expansion, among other things. Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison wrote last month about the series. Here’s how Reeves’ pastor Rev. Cary Stockett framed it: “We want it understood that this is a kingdom of God issue, grossly ignored right in the middle of the Bible Belt. We want the people who quote John 3:16 to understand that it matters to Jesus that there are people (our Mississippi neighbors) without real access to good healthcare … and so it should matter to us, too.”

2) Presley has a busy weekend ahead. On Saturday, he’ll campaign in Ridgeland, Vicksburg, Yazoo City and Pike County. On Sunday, he’ll campaign in Pascagoula, Gulfport and DeSoto County. That’s a lot of ground to cover. We haven’t seen Reeves’ schedule, but it’ll almost certainly be as crowded.

3) Are candidates spending any time in debate prep? The one and only debate of the cycle will be held Wednesday, Nov. 1. It is sure to be a contentious, bitter affair. If you’re in the Jackson metro area, come to Hal & Mal’s for a Mississippi Today watch party. We’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host some live analysis as soon as it ends.

The post Several GOP consultants share predictions about runoff between Tate Reeves, Brandon Presley appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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