The case of a woman convicted over 20 years ago for the death of her former-fiance’s son could be reexamined through a conviction integrity unit proposed by Democratic Attorney General candidate Great Kemp Martin.
Tasha Shelby has been serving a life sentence without parole at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility since her 2000 capital murder conviction for the death of her stepson, Bryan Thompson IV.
Shelby’s attorney, family members and supporters believe she is innocent because of the toddler’s family history of seizures and evolving science behind “Shaken Baby Syndrome.”
They see a conviction integrity unit as one of the last options they could use to free Shelby.
“We’ve been fighting for Tasha for 26 years,” said Shelby’s aunt Penny Warner at a Tuesday press conference with Kemp Martin.
Last week a panel of the state Supreme Courtdenied her request for a new trial. That leaves Shelby with few options such as asking the attorney general to dismiss her charge or requesting a pardon from the governor’s office, which the supporters have done.
Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Greta Kemp Martin, talks about how she will serve Mississippians from all walks of life if elected, during a press conference held at the Sillers Building. in Jackson, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Kemp Martin, who met and talked with Shelby last week, said her proposed conviction integrity unit could help her and others across the state. She said the unit would look at cases of innocence, wrongful conviction, prosecutorial misconduct and evidence.
“Her fate is sealed unless someone steps in to intervene,” Kemp Martin said.
Warner planned to visit Shelby after the press conference and tell her about the recent development in her case. The Tennessee native is the relative who lives closest to Shelby, and Warner said she makes the drive down to the Jackson area every few months.
Warner sees Shelby as one of her daughters and she’s waiting for the call that says she can come home. Her niece would live with her, and Warner has already prepared an outfit for her niece to wear when she gets out of prison.
“I cannot do what she has done,” Warner said about her niece being incarcerated for over 20 years. “She has remained so positive. She has a very strong faith and we all pray for her all the time. I kept thinking she’d be home by now.”
A seizure or shaken baby syndrome?
On the early morning of May 30, 1997, 22-year-old Shelby heard a thump and found 2½-year-old Bryan on the floor struggling to breath and having what appeared to be a seizure. She called the toddler’s father who was at work and they rushed the toddler to the hospital.
Tasha Shelby, second from the right, with attorney Valena Beety, far left, and researchers Emily Girvan-Dutton and Astrid Parrett., was convicted of murdering her fiance’s toddler son in 2000. During a hearing to determine whether she should receive a new trial, the state called only one witness: Dr. Scott Benton. Credit: Valena Beety
Prosecutors believed Shelby was responsible for the toddler’s brain injuries. An expert witness for the state who conducted the autopsy testified Bryan’s injuries showed someone intentionally shook him and banged his head against something – injuries consistent with “shaken baby syndrome.”
Yet in a similar later case in Alabama where state expert Dr. Scott Benton was a paid expert for the defense, he offered conflicting testimony.
West Virginia Innocence Project Director Valena Beety took on Shelby’s case in 2011 while working at the Mississippi Innocence Project. In interviews and court filings, Beety has argued that Shelby is innocent, and experts have cited advances in medical science that have undermined shaken baby syndrome – now referred to as abusive head trauma.
Legal attempts to revisit Shelby’s conviction
LeRoy Riddick, the medical examiner who ruled Bryan’s death a homicide, reexamined medical records and concluded a family history of seizures may have contributed to the toddler’s death and injuries that are consistent with shaken baby syndrome, so he changed the manner of death from homicide to an accident, Mississippi Today reported in its investigation “Shaky Science, Fractured Families.”
From Riddick’s updated opinion and evolving science about shaken baby syndrome, Shelby asked for a new trial. The state called child abuse pediatrician Benton to testify at Shelby’s 2018 Post-Conviction Relief hearing. He maintained that Bryan died from blunt force trauma with shaking.
The next year, a Harrison County Circuit Court judge upheld Shelby’s conviction, saying that shaken baby syndrome hasn’t been “debunked.”
Shelby tried the federal court by filing a habeas petition with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2021, but earlier this year that petition was dismissed because it was time-barred.
Beety, Shelby’s attorney, filed another petition for post-conviction relief in March based on contradictory testimony by Benton, which was first reported in Mississippi Today’s “Shaky Science, Fractured Families” series.
She argued in the court records that the testimony Benton gave as an expert in 2022 for a man accused of child abuse in Alabama would have supported relief for Shelby at her 2018 post-conviction relief hearing.
The motion for post-conviction relief also cited new evidence: one of the jurors in Shelby’s case was the toddler’s great-uncle by marriage and had heard about the child’s death before trial, according to court records.
A panel of the state Supreme Court dismissed Shelby’s request for a new trial but allowed the George Cochran Innocence Project at Ole Miss to file an amicus brief to support her. Beety, Shelby’s attorney, said the order did not make sense, so she has filed a motion for clarification this week.
When U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn was elected in 1992, he became the first African American elected to Congress from South Carolina in nearly a century.
Clyburn, considered a Democratic kingmaker and one of the most prominent Black elected officials in the nation, visited Jackson last weekend to sound alarm bells that if Jackson pastors, metro voters and college students do not organize and participate in the Nov. 7 election, a history of inadequate representation could repeat itself in the Deep South.
“We’ve got to do what is necessary to make sure that our children and our grandchildren don’t live the past that our parents and grandparents lived because there are forces who wish to turn the clock back,” Clyburn told a room of Mississippi Democrats on Oct. 15.
The South Carolina congressman joined U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and top Mississippi Democratic Party officials last weekend as part of one of the largest, most coordinated get-out-the-vote efforts from the state party in recent years.
The events Clyburn attended on Oct. 15-16 targeted predominantly Black churches, Democratic Party base voters and students at historically Black colleges.
He and state party officials visited several Jackson-area Black churches, historically anchors of progressive politics and activism, for weekend worship services, and they met separately with dozens of Black clergy members to discuss the importance of the Nov. 7 election. They visited Jackson State University and Tougaloo College, two historically Black universities, and Millsaps College to stress the importance of college students voting in elections.
The get-out-the-vote efforts from Democratic Party officials have continued into late October and have been focused across the state, not just in the Jackson metro.
This past weekend, state party leaders attended multiple events on the Gulf Coast, including a get-out-the-vote rally Sunday night at First Missionary Baptist Church Handsboro in Gulfport. The event, which organizers titled “Wake the Sleeping Giant,” was keynoted by Bishop William James Barber II, co-chair of the national organization Poor People’s Campaign.
The party will host a virtual organizing event called “Souls to the Polls” on Oct. 28, which is the first day of in-person absentee voting. The party has also hosted several town hall-style events in multiple Mississippi towns over the past few weeks focused on the state’s hospital crisis before mostly-Black audiences, culminating with a final stop on the tour in Jackson on Oct. 25.
And while party leaders organize their own events, Democratic candidates are benefitting from the independent electoral work of numerous third-party progressive organizations that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to knock doors and target hyper-local Black communities. These groups, many of which have long organizing histories in Mississippi, are pumping money this cycle into door-knocking, phone banking, direct mailing, and digital and radio advertising.
But the party’s work of the past few weeks marks a noticeable shift in strategy to energize its base ahead of the 2023 election. Lackluster efforts with Black voters during the 2019 statewide election cycle from former state party leaders notoriously left candidates frustrated and Democratic voters feeling left behind.
“I don’t care if we’ve got a Democrat running for dog catcher now,” said Mississippi Democratic Party Chair Cheikh Taylor, who took over as leader of the state party in July. “I want us to win.”
The pitch to Black voters
Black Mississippi voters make up the overwhelming foundation of the Democratic Party — about two-thirds of the party’s voting base. If candidates and party leaders want to flip one of the eight statewide offices currently held by the GOP, encouraging Black voters to turn out on Election Day is critical.
Organizers of the recent political events have framed the upcoming election in a personal and somber tone, centered on how lives and personal health, particularly for Black Mississippians, are at stake in this election.
The basis for the grave tone is a fear that four more years of conservative policies from the Governor’s Mansion and state Capitol in one of the most impoverished states in the nation could dig the state deeper into negative health outcomes and cause rural hospitals to close.
Every region in Mississippi, for example, ranked higher in infant mortality than the national average, according to the state’s 2021 Mississippi Infant Mortality Report released earlier this month. The three counties with the highest 10-year averages were counties in the majority-Black Delta.
Mississippi Democrats have said this problem and many others the state faces have been avoidable. They say if the state’s Republican leaders, who have held most of the state’s policymaking power since 2011, expanded Medicaid coverage to the working poor and strategically developed the Delta economically, some of those metrics could be reversed.
“People say all elections and all voting is local,” House Democratic Leader Rep. Robert Johnson III said last week. “No, no, no, all voting is personal. See, when you cast a vote, you’re not casting a vote for Brandon Presley. You’re casting a vote for yourself. You’re voting for something that’s going to happen for you.”
The bulk of media attention and national party resources during the election cycle has focused on Presley, the Democratic nominee for governor who has mounted a formidable campaign against Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and recently outraised the incumbent governor in campaign donations.
But most of the recent Black voter outreach events have not been framed exclusively around Presley’s race or any specific candidate. Rather, they have served as a repudiation of conservative policies over the last four years that, in the Democratic leaders’ view, harm Black communities. The events have served as a call to action to elect all Democrats on the ballot.
However, there have been instances when Presley’s work as north Mississippi’s public service commissioner was lauded, and his attendance at predominantly Black churches, HBCU football games and other places over the past few weeks was clearly noticed.
Clyburn, for instance, who previously served as House majority whip, partnered with Presley in recent years to pass federal legislation that installed broadband in rural areas of the country. Those efforts, according to Clyburn, ultimately led President Joe Biden to push for broadband in the final version of the bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2021.
“I’m here to say to you that if not for Brandon Presley, I don’t think we would have gotten broadband in our infrastructure bill,” Clyburn said to much applause.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., left, comments on the support the Biden Administration has provided for rural broadband projects as Jason Gumbs, Regional Senior Vice President at Comcast, center, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves listen at the Bolton-Edwards Elementary/Middle School, in Bolton, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Clifton Carroll, a Reeves campaign spokesman, said in a statement that Presley has gotten support from “every corner of the national liberal machine” and brought millions of dollars into the state in an attempt to “flip it blue.”
“It’s no wonder that everyone from the Biden team to Bennie Thompson has gotten behind him — because he’s a true blue liberal Democrat,” Carroll said.
But Thompson, the state’s lone Democrat in Congress who has been a presence on the 2023 campaign trail, said the rhetoric from the Reeves campaign seeking to scare voters by connecting Presley with national Democrats is hypocritical. The governor, Thompson pointed out, has attempted to celebrate some of Biden’s policies and take credit for them, like he did with broadband efforts in late August.
“If you look at the resources that Joe Biden has put into the state of Mississippi, it’s unreal,” Thompson said. “And now, (Reeves) is trying to claim some of this money that we sent from Washington as if he’s being a good steward as governor and all of that.
“Look, right string, wrong yo-yo,” Thompson added.
New strategy from Democratic Party
The governor’s race aside, several progressive officials proclaimed the slate of Democratic statewide candidates was strong, and they were building a better foundation for the party that can continue to be stronger in future years.
The coordinated events last weekend when Clyburn visited were the first major ones the state Democratic Party has hosted since Taylor took over as chairman. Local Democrats’ ability to attract a national figure like Clyburn, a personal friend of Thompson, to Jackson is the first visit of its kind in several years.
When Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood ran for governor in 2019, for example, no major outside Democratic official came to Mississippi to stump for him. When former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 as the Democratic nominee, then-U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker stumped for him, but it was not billed around an organized event as was with Clyburn’s weekend visit.
Taylor, in quick fashion, has worked to build the weak foundation of the party up, brought national Democratic leaders to the state and, on Oct. 15, conducted the first large party fundraiser in several years.
“This party needs you, and we want to give you a reason to come back,” Taylor told party members at the fundraiser.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley visits with supporters during a forum concerning health at L.T. Ellis Community Center in Laurel, Miss., on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
But Clyburn warned voters during his Mississippi visit that just because the state party is working against well-funded Republicans, that is not reason to sit out the upcoming race. One absent vote during an election, Clyburn said, can set off a ripple effect of policies that last generations.
He illustrated that point by recounting when no presidential candidate in 1876 garnered a majority of the electoral college votes, the race was thrown to the U.S. House of Representatives to pick the winner.
The House became deadlocked and formed a 15-member committee to determine the winner for the highest office in the country. That committee then voted 8-7 to choose Rutherford B. Hayes as president, who eventually agreed to remove federal troops from Southern states, effectively nixing Reconstruction in the Deep South.
That one-vote margin allowed white Southerners to institute Black Codes that barred African Americans, such as the eight congressmen that preceded Clyburn, from voting and holding office.
“You must remember that clock got turned back by one vote,” Clyburn told Mississippians during his visit. “I want you to remember that. Are you that one vote who allows the clock to get turned back this time, or will you be that one vote to keep it from happening?”
My first day of work at Mississippi Today was the first day of the 2017 legislative session. At the time, the organization was mere months old, and it seemed like in those early days I spent more time explaining who we were than conducting interviews.
The organization was founded in 2016 to fill a hole in news coverage. As Mississippi newspapers were forced to cut back staff and printing days, it also meant fewer reporters at the state Capitol, where life-altering legislation was crafted and passed into law. Often, this occurred without much media coverage because of the constraints and limited resources newspapers faced.
Our goal back then was (and still is) to provide the citizens of the state with news and information about the goings-on at the Legislature, where elected officials made decisions that affect daily life without much oversight. We wanted to place more accountability on lawmakers and government officials and critically examine how they were, or weren’t, serving voters.
We flooded readers with updates on where bills stood in the legislative process, and as a result our profile and readership grew with politicos and people passionate about politics and policy. That wasn’t enough — we wanted our journalism to be appealing to people who don’t have time to sit through school board meetings or attend budget hearings.
Over the past few years, we’ve done a lot of reflection on our stories and discussed how we can be better. We’ve taken a critical look at whose voices our journalism elevated and are still working to diversify that.
I’m proud of the work we’ve produced this year alone, closely covering the state’s decision to ban gender-affirming care for minors from the perspective of families and health care providers. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Dobbs, we thoughtfully covered the repercussions with details no one else was reporting.
I could go on, but my point is that I’m so proud of the journalism this newsroom has produced as we’ve continued to grow and mature as an organization.
It’s time for me to grow, too. After nearly seven years, I’m leaving Mississippi Today to join another nonprofit news organization, where I’ll have the chance to work with newsrooms across the country and help them cover issues of race and equity in higher education.
The decision is a bittersweet one. Mississippi Today is where I’ve grown up as a journalist, starting as a legislative and education reporter and working my way up to become its first female managing editor. The journey has been, frankly, exhilarating and at times exhausting. I’ve had the opportunity to serve in a leadership role in the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom during some of the most historic and transformative moments in recent Mississippi history.
When COVID-19 ravaged Mississippi at rates higher than almost anywhere else in the world, I struggled with our editor-in-chief to decide how and whether we should send reporters into the field at a time when the spread of the disease was incredibly high, but the need for information and reporting from the state’s hospitals and vaccination sites was critical.
As lawmakers debated changing the state flag featuring the Confederate battle emblem, I and other staffers worked around the clock. We literally chased down lawmakers in Capitol hallways to get them on the record about their position, all while fielding numerous very passionate and often critical emails, phone calls and even hand-written letters from readers about our coverage and the merits of changing the flag.
I’ve taken my role and the responsibility that comes with it seriously and, I hope, made decisions and changes that make this place a good one to work in. Whoever takes this position next has the opportunity to join a newsroom filled with people who care deeply about Mississippi and want to help make it a better place through quality accountability journalism.
These days, when our reporters make calls and do interviews, there’s a lot less explaining about who we are and what we do. That’s a testament to the work we’ve put in over seven years to become a news organization that writes for Mississippians, not just about them.
Mississippi Today has room to grow and audiences to reach, but I know I’ll keep reading. I hope you will, too.
Mississippi Today joins four U.S. newsrooms in exploring changes in rural workforce development as part of an editorial collaboration from the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network (RNN).
As one of 75 newsrooms reporting on rural issues in 47 states, Mississippi Today is part of a national initiative to uncover the most critical needs in these communities. Collaborative reporting reaches more people to make meaningful change possible.
“We are delighted to have Mississippi Today join this reporting project to share how Mississippians can bridge gaps in the work-to-jobs pipeline for rural communities,” said Alana Rocha, Rural News Network editor. “This crucial reporting will be shared across the country to surface solutions for other communities fighting for a better future for rural workers.”
For the next six months, Mississippi Today will work with Cardinal News in Virginia, KOSU in Oklahoma, Shasta Scout in Northern California and The Texas Tribune in covering the issue for regional, statewide and national audiences. The journalists will explore how changing demographics, politics and economic needs are reshaping rural workforce development programs.
Mississippi Today’s higher education reporter Molly Minta will focus her reporting on one Mississippi Delta county, Issaquena, where less than 1% of adult residents have a bachelor’s degree, the lowest in Mississippi and the second lowest in the nation. Her research is showing that nearly a quarter of adults aged 25 or older in this sparsely populated county on the edge of the Mississippi River have attempted college but didn’t graduate. Her project will look at the barriers to higher education there but also focus on efforts underway to increase the county’s college-going rate.
“Working with this collaborative has enabled us to see how some of the same issues affecting Mississippi’s Issaquena County are at play in other parts of the country and to see how other communities are attempting to tackle the problem,” said Debbie Skipper, Mississippi Today’s Justice Team and Special Projects Editor. “We are also gaining insight and advice from the leadership at the Rural News Network as we move forward in the reporting and editing process.”
This series is made possible with support from Ascendium. Financial supporters have zero say in the editorial process.
The first round of the series publishes in early December, with follow-up stories set for early 2024.
Mississippi Today is a dynamic, digital nonprofit news organization that aims to engage, inform, and empower the people of Mississippi. Committed to delivering the highest caliber of journalism, we focus on educating Mississippians about the intersections of education, health, government, climate, and politics, and how these impact the daily lives of its residents.
Position Summary:
Mississippi Today is seeking an experienced Managing Editor to spearhead our commitment to engaged journalism while overseeing and enhancing our editorial strategy. The Managing Editor will lead our team of journalists, ensuring our content reflects diverse voices and state perspectives. Central to this role is the practice and promotion of engaged and solutions-oriented journalism, actively involving the community in our processes and ensuring that their voices are elevated in our work. This pivotal position will also shape the newsroom’s structure, focusing on managing teams of editors and bolstering newsroom workflows.
Primary responsibilities of the Managing Editor at Mississippi Today include:
Editorial and Newsroom Management:
In conjunction with the Editor-in-Chief, develop and manage editorial budgets that support newsroom operations and expansion.
Supervise a team of 2-3 editors, ensuring communication and alignment across the newsroom.
Lead editorial meetings, setting the direction for content and ensuring alignment with Mississippi Today’s mission.
Coordinate content strategies with platform managers and advocate for a diverse range of views within our reporting.
Manage teams of editors, providing guidance, advice, and management support.
Implement a distribution mindset among leadership and staff, helping editors and reporters think strategically about possible publishing partners on the local and national level.
Represent Mississippi Today in public speaking engagements, panels, and community events.
Oversee the hiring process for newsroom roles, from crafting job descriptions to conducting interviews, in collaboration with team editors and human resources.
Identify and coordinate in-house newsroom trainings for staff.
Act as point person for summer interns.
Plan evergreen stories for holidays.
Submit journalists’ stories for nomination to annual awards.
Engaged Journalism and Content Strategy:
Serve as the point person to the Audience Team for newsletters, resources, guides, data projects and other innovations to ensure production and alignment with editorial goals and standards.
Drive daily digital engagement, fostering a habit of reliance and trust with our readers and listeners.
Champion an “audience-first” approach, collaborating closely with the community and integrating their voices into our content.
Have a familiarity with modern engagement tools and methodologies.
Maintain a deep commitment to public service journalism.
Operational Duties:
Obtain annual press passes for reporters and manage external requests for publication.
Act as a bridge between newsroom staff and upper management, ensuring clear communication and understanding of policies.
Embrace and implement emerging tools of engaged journalism to further the mission of Mississippi Today.
Handle newsroom travel arrangements, from booking flights to accommodations.
Manage all newsroom subscriptions, ensuring accessibility and regular updates.
Qualifications:
2 to 5 years of management experience
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
Ability to manage multiple projects at once while meeting all deadlines
Excellent organizational and leadership skills
Ability to plan and coordinate people and operations
Digital publishing experience
Working knowledge of online platforms like WordPress and SEO concepts
Experience in copywriting and editing
Attention to detail
How to Apply:
We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people who are differently abled.
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.
It might not surprise Mississippians that The Cook Political Report, regarded as one of the nation’s preeminent elections experts, shifted their 2023 Mississippi governor’s race forecast on Monday in Democrat Brandon Presley’s direction.
Presley, who is challenging Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in November, has mounted a strong, high-dollar campaign and is clearly picking up steam in a race against an incumbent who has struggled with likability problems. Polls this year have consistently shown Presley within striking distance and Reeves struggling to get 50% support.
But what may surprise many Mississippians is what at least two anonymous Republican Party operatives based in the state told Cook Political Report editor Jessica Taylor. Here’s what they said:
“I think Brandon has run a good race, while Reeves is soft with some Republicans, particularly moderates. [Presley has] done everything you can do, he’s been very disciplined and he’s done a very good job staying on message. It’s like he wakes up in the middle of the night and says ‘grocery tax cut, expand Medicare and corruption.’”
“My concern is that Brandon Presley has had a lot of cash come his way and he’s spent aggressively on TV. To me the risk for Tate is his side tends to think he’s fine, but Tate’s likability is an issue, and I think that can affect turnout. I think the combination of that and Presley having more money makes an eight-point race closer potentially.”
“My message to Republicans would be, Brandon Presley’s got a big wad of cash and there’s great risk of us having low turnout. If [Presley] spends his cash wisely on turning out the Democratic vote, this thing could be really really close.”
“If Republican turnout is softer than it would be otherwise,” there’s cause for concern, one Mississippi Republican said. “But I know if Bennie is engaged,” Democrats might be able to “juice [Black turnout] somewhat.”
For weeks, as Mississippi Today has reported, GOP operatives in Mississippi have been trying to sound the alarm. But if those quotes published Monday don’t stir the Reeves campaign into a frenzy, it might be time for the governor to find some new staffers.
The winds have clearly been shifting in recent weeks. A new poll released yesterday by the Democratic Governors Association has the race within just one point. Presley is still riding news that he out-raised Reeves over the past three months — a shock to many who regard Reeves as the state’s most successful fundraiser perhaps ever.
And now The Cook Political Report moved the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race on Monday from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” — a shift in Presley’s direction. It’s just one notch from “Toss Up.”
“Republican Gov. Tate Reeves still has the edge, according to Republicans and Democrats nationally and locally we’ve talked to, but it’s morphed into a competitive fight with added intrigue heading into Election Day thanks to an unusually strong challenger in Brandon Presley,” Taylor, the Cook editor, wrote. “There is also an increasing scenario that neither candidate will top 50% on Nov. 7, which means the contest could head to a runoff three weeks later.
“ … Ultimately, this race has clearly become competitive, from the money that Presley has to the way Republicans are responding and beginning to worry.”
Four years ago, when Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood mounted a tough challenge of Reeves for the Governor’s Mansion, Cook moved its rating from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” on Sept. 27. Reeves defeated Hood 52% to 47%.
A key difference in this year’s race than four years ago, Taylor writes, is the possibility of a runoff election. A third 2023 gubernatorial candidate, independent Gwendolyn Gray, dropped out of the race in early October and endorsed Presley, but her announced exit came too late to be removed from the ballot. She could earn enough votes to keep Reeves or Presley from reaching 50%, which would push those two candidates to a Nov. 28 runoff election.
The alarms inside the Mississippi GOP are blaring, and Democrats feel like they have momentum. We said it yesterday and we’ll say it again today: Just 14 days from Election Day, there’s plenty of drama.
1) Both candidates are absolutely tearing up Mississippi’s less-than-stellar roads. Yesterday, Reeves made stops in Columbus, Macon and Noxubee County. Presley made stops in West Point, Meridian and Laurel.
2) What on earth happened at U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s home in Brookhaven on Sunday? Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison reported Monday that U.S. Secret Service is investigating after someone fired shots near her home. Gun rights and gun violence hasn’t been mentioned on the 2023 trail, but there’s two weeks left. Might the incident force the candidates into discussing a new issue?
3) Both Reeves and Presley will speak to the state’s top business leaders at the annual Hobnob lunch hosted by the Mississippi Economic Council on Oct. 26. It’s one of few venues where both candidates speak to the same room. They won’t be on stage together, but there could still be some fireworks.
The U.S. Secret Service is expected to be in Lincoln County today to investigate after gunshots were fired Sunday by an unknown person near the home of U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
No one was injured in the incident, and federal, state and local law enforcement are investigating, according to a statement from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
On social media, Hyde Smith said Monday, “An incident involving a shooting occurred near the home of Sen. Hyde-Smith early Sunday afternoon. The senator and her family were not harmed. Sen. Hyde-Smith is grateful for the concern shown by many and the good work of federal, state and local law enforcement.”
The shots were fired from a 9 mm weapon, according to a law enforcement source, and were fired in the general direction of the vehicle of a family member of Hyde-Smith’s as the person drove up the driveway toward the house near Brookhaven in south Mississippi.
The incident occurred about 12:30 p.m. Sunday. After the shooting, a witness saw a vehicle speeding away.
Hyde-Smith was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2018 to fill a vacancy. She won a special election later that year and won an election for a full six-year term in 2020.
Update 10-23-23: This story to add comments from Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
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.
If you’ve wondered why the Democratic Governors Association has pumped a historic amount of money into Brandon Presley’s 2023 campaign, you might get your answer later today.
The Washington-based organization that works to get Democratic governors elected will publicly release a poll today that shows Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves leading Presley by just one point, according to a memo shared with Mississippi Today.
The poll shows Reeves leading Presley 46% to 45%, with nearly 10% still undecided 15 days from the election. The poll also shows that among those undecided voters, 68% have an unfavorable opinion of Reeves, while just 2% view him favorably.
If accurate, the poll also shows both candidates well below the 50%-plus-one threshold needed to avoid a runoff. A third candidate, independent Gwendolyn Gray, dropped out of the race in early October and endorsed Presley, but her announced exit came too late to be removed from the ballot. She could earn enough votes to keep Reeves or Presley from reaching 50%, which would push those two candidates to a Nov. 28 runoff election.
The Democratic Governors Association has pumped at least $3.75 million into Presley’s campaign this year, which is an unprecedented Mississippi investment from a single group affiliated with the national Democratic Party. That sum helped Presley out-raise Reeves over the past three months — a feat that very few political observers expected.
To add some context to this year’s DGA investment, the same group gave Democratic nominee Jim Hood just $2.4 million in his race against Reeves four years ago. And this year in neighboring Louisiana, one of two other states with a 2023 governor’s election, the DGA invested about $300,000 total.
A word of warning about this poll and any others you’ll see between now and November: ‘tis the season for skewed polling leaks. Given their investment in one candidate in the race, the uber-politically affiliated DGA could very well have reason to release numbers that don’t tell a complete picture.
But here’s what we do know: The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling, a reputable North Carolina-based firm that has an A-minus rating from the industry standard FiveThirtyEight pollster rating service. This pollster, according to the memo shared with Mississippi Today, surveyed 601 Mississippi voters via a mix of text message and phone calls from October 19-20, and the margin of error is 4%.
There are reasons to buy this latest poll’s numbers. This new poll, like others before it, shows Reeves underwater on favorability. Of the new poll’s total respondents, according to the memo, 51% have an unfavorable opinion of Reeves and just 33% view him favorably.
Presley, on the other hand, has a marginal favorable rating among all the poll’s respondents (36% favorable to 31% unfavorable), but the poll memo shows the Democratic nominee still has a major name ID problem — something that also mirrors other public polling released earlier this year. In all, 32% of the poll’s respondents are unsure of their opinion of Presley.
The poll that shows neither candidate particularly close to the 50% mark also tracks with buzz among Republican and Democratic politicos over the past week or two. Political operatives on both sides in Mississippi continue to openly speculate about the runoff possibility. And both campaigns, according to several sources, are said to be preparing for the possibility of a three-week November sprint to the runoff election.
Accurate or not, this new DGA poll will rattle the state’s political ground and attract even more national attention to the race. Just 15 days out, there’s plenty of drama.
1) How low, exactly, is Republican enthusiasm? The concern is there among many politicos, but can Reeves leverage his many millions on ginning up the GOP base?
2) What will enthusiasm look like on the Democratic side? Presley is clearly targeting Black voters — the base of the Democratic Party. In the last three weekends, he’s gone to three different HBCU tailgates (Alcorn State two weeks ago, Jackson State last weekend, and Mississippi Valley State this weekend).
3) Can Presley win broader support in northeast Mississippi than Jim Hood did in 2019? It’s a region of the state that Trump won definitively and Reeves won handily four years ago. The Democratic nominee campaigned Sunday in northeast Mississippi.
In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with the talented David Rae Morris.
Morris is a photographer, documentarian, father and the son of writer Willie Morris. He talks about his career, talent and what it is like growing up with a famous father. A master storyteller, Morris gives a thoughtful interview.
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.
Just five nights before the 2019 governor’s election, about 10,000 Republicans packed into the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo to hear a rambunctious President Donald Trump plead with Mississippians to vote for Tate Reeves.
It was borderline baffling that an immensely popular Republican president had to fly down to a strong Republican state in the eleventh hour and campaign for a well-known Republican candidate. But Reeves was struggling to reach the 50% mark in polling against longtime Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood, and Democrats smelled blood in the water.
“Wait a minute, how is this guy … I can’t believe this is a competitive race,” Trump acknowledged from the podium that night. “I’m talking to Mississippi, I can’t believe it. I don’t think (Hood) is going to be the right guy. I think the right guy is Tate Reeves. He will be a great governor.”
More than a few prognosticators still believe that rowdy, high-energy Trump rally won Reeves the 2019 race. Advisers close to Hood said they had internal polls going into the last two weeks of the election that actually had the Democrat leading Reeves. But on Election Day five days after Trump’s Tupelo visit, Reeves won with 51.9% of the vote.
Four years later, much is the same. Reeves is again favored at the top of the ticket for governor. But yet again, he’s struggling to reach the 50% mark in polling against another tough Democratic challenger, this time longtime Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.
But not all is the same this year. Trump, of course, is not the president. Instead of jetting off to political rallies to boost Republican allies across the country, the former president is tied up in numerous legal proceedings at both the state and federal levels. Late this week, two of his closest allies accepted plea deals and appeared to turn on him in those deliberations. And a judge slapped him with a $5,000 fine on Friday for violating a gag order in his New York fraud case.
Trump, who clearly has other things on his mind than Reeves’ chances in November, has not weighed in yet on the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race, and it’s not clear if he will. It’s also not clear if it would mean nearly as much to Mississippi voters if he did.
A Mississippi Today/Siena College poll conducted in September showed an even favorable/unfavorable split among Mississippi voters on Trump — a much more negative overall view of the former president than in previous years’ polling.
With Republican operatives buzzing about GOP enthusiasm and turnout concerns, Reeves likability concerns, and a Democratic campaign that is making some strides, is another Trump visit on the horizon?
And if not, is there another silver bullet Reeves can load into his chamber?
1) Presley announced a statewide bus tour to close out his 2023 campaign. The campaign said the tour will make 55 stops across the state in the final weeks of the election.
2) Reeves spent his Friday in southwest Mississippi, visiting McComb, Liberty and Woodville. Interestingly, Amite and Wilkinson counties — home to about 21,000 people between the two — got visits from both Reeves and Presley this week. Presley visited the counties Thursday to officially fulfill a promise to visit all 82 counties this year.
3) It’s linked in the headlines above, but Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender settled any questions or debate today about how many gubernatorial debates there will be. Pender reports: “It appears (Nov. 1) will be the only gubernatorial debate, not the first. It also would appear Reeves agreed to the single debate just days before the election to defang Presley’s claim — and campaign fodder — that he was dodging and ‘hiding’ from the voting public, not because of Reeves’ strong desire to debate.”
