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Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis lawmaker who gained national notoriety after his Republican colleagues expelled him from the legislature, will campaign with Mississippi Democratic leaders in DeSoto County on Wednesday.

Pearson will join civic leaders, Democratic candidates and community activists in the area to encourage voters to participate in Mississippi’s upcoming statewide election. 

He’s expected to join community and faith leaders at an Olive Branch restaurant on Wednesday morning and speak with students at Rust College, a private historically Black college in nearby Marshall County. 

The Tennessee lawmaker’s visit to the Memphis suburb is notable because DeSoto County has long been viewed as a GOP stronghold in the Magnolia State. However, Pearson’s visit and a national progressive organization targeting a legislative seat in the area could signal the state party is looking to make inroads into the suburban area.  

Pearson was one of two lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee statehouse chamber in April for violating decorum rules during a gun control protest on the House floor. But the Shelby County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to reappoint him to the legislative seat. 

Since the expulsion and reinstatement, Pearson has become a leader of a movement of Democratic opposition in the face of aggressive Republican leadership in the Deep South. The lawmaker is visiting the state as a guest to the Mississippi Democratic Party and not a specific Democratic candidate.

The post Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson to campaign with Mississippi Dems in DeSoto County appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Last month, the Mississippi Abortion Access Coalition launched an Abortion Patient Bill of Rights designed to educate Mississippi constituents on their abortion options post-Dobbs.

Tyler Harden, a longtime activist and organizer, is the Mississippi state director of Planned Parenthood Southeast – one of a dozen organizations that joined forces to create the coalition, dedicated to ensuring Mississippians have access to safe and legal abortion. 

The Abortion Patient Bill of Rights is intended to address misinformation around abortion and was modeled after the Know Your Rights Campaign created by American Civil Liberties Union and other Black Lives Matter groups, according to Harden. 

The bill outlines, for constituents, what they can do in Mississippi and where they can go out of state to seek abortion help, and for health providers, what they can say in Mississippi and where they can direct patients out of state. 

This comes after Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Biden administration in a letter back in July that Mississippi authorities need access to information about residents who obtain abortions out of state. 

Harden spoke with Mississippi Today on the state of Planned Parenthood post-Dobbs in Mississippi. 

Mississippi Today: From where you’re standing, what has the past year looked like post-Dobbs?

Harden: The past year has been one filled with confusion for a lot of people. Through my work in MAAC (Mississippi Abortion Access Coalition) and with PPSE (Planned Parenthood Southeast), we found that a lot of people didn’t know that even if abortion is illegal in Mississippi, with two exceptions, they could still travel out of state and receive care. 

So, for a lot of people there’s confusion about what they can and can’t do, what they can and can’t say. And we also, as advocates and activists, have had confusion, as well – just a lot of confusion about ‘how can we show up for people without putting them at risk?’ and things like that. 

We have grown to a place now, through my work at Planned Parenthood, I’ve been able to see people grow to a place where this is more real for them. They’re understanding the tangible outcomes of what it means to not have abortion access. 

We’ve talked to people who have shared stories about having to, unfortunately, have stillbirths, because they weren’t able to access abortion care even though the doctors and the care providers said that they needed it. So, you know, this isn’t theory anymore for folks, it’s really something tangible that they can see and experience. 

MT: You’re the Mississippi state director at Planned Parenthood. What does care at Planned Parenthood look like post-Dobbs? 

Harden: Care in Mississippi is really centered on continuing the work of making sure people have access to contraceptives and information they need to plan their health outcomes. 

We are now a Title 10 provider, so for the first time in our history of Mississippi, our Hattiesburg health center is able to check in Title 10 patients, to provide even lower-cost health services. 

We’re also able to check in with teens and young folks in a different way than we had been. Mississippi has a statute that doesn’t allow teens to access contraceptive care without the permission of their parents – unless they go to a Title 10 provider. And so now that we’re a Title 10 provider, we’re able to connect with young people in a different way. 

In the coming year, we’ll be able to have dating ultrasounds, so that people who may need access to abortion care are able to know exactly how far along they are in their pregnancy, and be able to travel out of state, get the information they need, and be able to access the care that they need. 

MT: The Abortion Patient Bill of Rights launched last month. What is the main problem the initiative is designed to address?

Harden: Misinformation. It was modeled after the Know Your Rights Campaign started by ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and other folks leading the Black Lives Matter movement. But there was a lot of confusion, again, about what people could do and what people could say. And especially for Hispanic communities and young people in particular, they’ve been inundated with false claims telling them that the questions and information they wanted to have access to they no longer could. We wanted to give people something a little bit more digestible and easier to read and understand.

MT: How are you seeing misinformation or lack of access to information about abortion negatively impacting people in Mississippi?

Harden: We’ve seen what happens when people aren’t given correct information or accurate information. The Time article that covered the seventh-grader in the Delta who needed care. We know that when people don’t have access to what they need that they aren’t able to make decisions and lead healthy lives, and we know that Mississippians know how to take care of themselves. 

MT: What has been the biggest misconception or confusion Mississippians have had over abortion in the last year?

Harden: Questions about whether abortion is banned throughout the entire country have been very common, and also questions about the different timelines and where their closest healthcare provider who provides abortion care – things around that have been very confusing for people. 

Also, being able to expose people to information like abortion funds that are accessible, different hotlines that they’re able to call and get information about any legal concerns they may have. And in the case of networking, sometimes linking them to trusted organizations that can help them navigate what it means to learn more about self-managed abortions. So, the confusion has also offered a highway for us to give probably more information than people anticipated. 

MT: Who is being hit hardest in Mississippi with misinformation about abortion?

Harden: We know that the Hispanic population is being hit super hard. We also know that young people are being hit super hard with misinformation, on top of not even getting proper information about sex and sex education in their schools – so, misinformation on top of information that they didn’t already receive. 

And the Spanish-speaking population oftentimes is ignored in our state…so we’ve done a lot of work to make sure that our technical advice and all of that material is translated for folks who are in the Spanish-speaking community. And also making it digestible, accessible, for people who are young or on college campuses or grew up in parts of Mississippi where they didn’t have proper sex education – which is the majority of us. 

MT: Are you seeing those who fall under the state ban’s exceptions – to preserve the life of the pregnant person or when the pregnancy was caused by rape – able to utilize the exceptions, or are those folks getting left behind? 

Harden: Those folks are really getting left behind. The state purposely doesn’t make that statute easy to comprehend. So, a lot of times healthcare providers and their legal teams aren’t able to understand what they can and can’t do, and on the other side, they also aren’t making (the exceptions) known among everyday constituents. 

And that’s intentional, it’s a fear tactic. So, people usually don’t know about those exceptions and that’s where we really dug in and made sure that we could put this as plainly as possible so that if you did fall under one of those exceptions, or knew someone, or may in the future fall under one of those exceptions, you’ll know what it means and you’ll be able to access care. 

MT: What message would you give to Mississippians who are maybe struggling to grapple with the repercussions of the ruling?

Harden: We have always known how to take care of each other as Mississippians. I would encourage them to stay in it for the long-haul. It took us 50 years to get to this point, so it may take us even longer to get to somewhere better. But, we’ll definitely get there and Mississippi will lead the way. 

The post Q&A: Planned Parenthood State Director Tyler Harden talks about the work of pro-choice organizations in Mississippi post-Dobbs 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.

Everyone in Mississippi politics feels the momentum Democrat Brandon Presley has right now in his bid to unseat Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

There are the finance reports that show Presley outraising Reeves, one of the most prolific fundraisers in state’s history. There are the public and private polls that show Reeves under 50 points and Presley within striking distance. There’s the mad scramble of Republican leaders begging voters to turn out on Nov. 7. Even Reeves himself has cranked up the intensity of his attacks against Presley in the past couple weeks.

The buzz among the political class — Republicans and Democrats alike — about the closeness of this governor’s race and the threat Presley poses to the incumbent has reached new heights. But some of the most experienced Democratic consultants in Mississippi are approaching the moment with caution.

To get a sense of their sentiments, Mississippi Today reached out to four Democratic consultants in Mississippi who have not worked for the Presley campaign this cycle. We offered them anonymity to frankly share what was on their mind one week from Election Day.

Their thoughts ranged from varying levels of optimism about the race to frustration about a lack of investment in the state party to knocks on Reeves’ and Presley’s strategy. (Warning: There’s some dirty language in these quotes.)

Consultant 1: “A big difference between 2019 and this year is that Jim Hood peaked in late August and then all the momentum was moving towards Tate after that. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. For Brandon to win, he needed to run a near-perfect campaign. And he’s done that. I honestly would’ve thought that Tate would be up by 6-8 points right now, but he certainly isn’t running like he’s up. Brandon started out further behind than Hood because of name ID, and the environment for Dems is not great right now. Biden is super unpopular, and the issue that has kept Democrats afloat in other states — Dobbs — isn’t relevant to this race … But I’ll say this, if Brandon does win, it’ll be because he actually, genuinely cared about winning Black voters.”

Consultant 2: “I am not being critical of out-of-state consultants. Lord knows there’s enough work here for everybody. But with the money being spent on TV, we could invest in local Democrats and people like (attorney general candidate) Greta Kemp Martin. It’s the money. We wait on national orgs to be excited enough for us to acquire the money and then we turn around and spend it how they see fit with no regard for the problems we know exist … as long as it’s machine versus machine, we risk falling short every time. Think about it like this: If the Mississippi Democratic apparatus had the funds it always needed, Brandon wouldn’t have had to spend all that money on TV to raise his own name ID after 16 years in office because that would have been done already. What we’re doing as Democrats is not sustainable. It’ll be Brandon this November, but it’s political malpractice that I can’t tell you in good faith who it’ll be in 4, 8, even 12 years.”

Consultant 3: “Does it feel different right now than it did four years ago? Yes. Do I think that means Brandon will force a runoff or win? Maybe. Brandon is a very good candidate. But if Tate decided that poor people should be able to see a doctor without going broke, I can’t imagine we’d all feel this level of uncertainty going into Election Day.”

Consultant 4: “We all kept saying it would require a perfect storm for Brandon to be competitive. And I don’t think any of us believed that those variables would align with the calendar in such a way that we would feel good a week out. But here we are, a week out, and god help me I feel cautiously optimistic? It’s terrifying. I’m impressed by the quick turn work the party itself has done to engage Black voters. I’m pleased that the Presley campaign has so visibly courted Black voters and the endorsements of high-profile Black political and faith leaders. But if I never hear ‘let’s go Brandon’ again, it’ll be too soon.”

Headlines From The Trail

‘They don’t trust Tate Reeves’: Radio host explains why conservative voters are struggling with governor’s race

Podcast: At long last, Reeves and Presley will debate

Democratic Elvis relative hopes turnout is enough to unseat Mississippi Gov. Reeves

Could Mississippi Actually Elect a Democratic Governor?

Candidate for Mississippi governor visits Southaven to ‘narrow the gap’

Mississippi Insight: One-on-ones with Reeves and Presley

Debate between Reeves, Presley set for Wednesday

What We’re Watching

1) The final campaign finance reports of the race are due today at 5 p.m., 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) Milton Kuykendall — a very well-known DoSoto Countian who is the school’s former superintendent of education, a legendary high school basketball coach, and a Republican — endorsed Presley this week. DeSoto County has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, though a population boom over the past two decades (many people moving out to Memphis’ southern suburbs) is making the county more politically competitive by the cycle. The endorsement is a big get for Presley in a place that’s home to a whole lot of voters who could move the needle on Nov. 7.

3) The first and only debate between Reeves and Presley will be broadcast live on Wednesday, Nov. 1. 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 and to register. We hope to see you there!

The post Why some Democrats are approaching Brandon Presley’s momentum with caution appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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The proposed fellowship will train two to three family physicians a year in obstetrics, which the medical community hopes will provide rural and underserved areas with prenatal, delivery and postpartum care.

More than half of Mississippi’s counties are considered maternity care deserts, meaning there are no practicing OB-GYNs and no hospitals that deliver babies. For family physicians looking to practice obstetrics, the lack of training programs and difficulty getting affordable malpractice insurance coverage are challenging. 

Aside from two hospitals that have been able to cut through the red tape and use family physicians in maternal care, nearly all pregnancies are handled by OB-GYNs, who are in short supply in Mississippi and mostly practice in urban areas. 

The state is an outlier when it comes to how little it uses family physicians in obstetrics. Across the country, family physicians play a significant role in providing obstetric care to expectant mothers. Neighboring Alabama, for instance, boasts five fellowships in obstetrics for family physicians.

Family physicians deliver babies in more than 40% of U.S. counties, and “are the sole maternity care clinicians delivering babies in 181 (maternity care deserts) … serving more than 400,000 women” nationwide, according to a report by the American Academy of Family Physicians. 

Dr. James Lee Valentine and Dr. Melissa Stephens of EC Health Net, a family medicine residency program in Meridian, are designing the new one-year training program to focus on increasing access to rural maternal care.

“The fellowship will train family physicians to be able to go into some of our rural, underserved communities, and provide obstetric care for these women close to home, who may have limited access and are facing challenges,” Stephens said. 

University of Mississippi Medical Center is home to the only OB-GYN residency in the state, which graduates five or six residents each year. Of those, an average of two residents remain and practice in Mississippi.

On the other hand, a record 37 family physicians graduated in 2023 from residencies in Mississippi – more than any year in the past five years, according to the Office of Mississippi Physician Workforce.

 “These patients sometimes don’t get any (prenatal care) and they show up in the emergency room, delivering … that’s got to change,” Valentine said. “And I’m not saying that we ought to put family practice doctors out there doing all kinds of GYN surgeries and all that, but we got to deliver better prenatal care to our patients in the rural areas.”

The fellowship will set physicians up on three-month rotations between EC Health Net in Meridian, South Sunflower Hospital in Indianola, and Wayne General Hospital in Waynesboro. Valentine and Stephens hope to also add a stint at a larger hospital studying gynecological surgeries.

South Sunflower and Wayne General are the only two hospitals in the state currently using family medicine OBs, despite the bureaucratic challenges. The family physician OBs at these two hospitals are attending the majority of births in their counties.

Dr. Kelvin Sherman, the only practicing family medicine OB at Wayne General, delivers between 180 and 280 babies a year from Wayne County and some neighboring counties. In 2022, 256 babies were born in Wayne County, which has no practicing OB-GYN, alone.  

Sherman, who did his obstetrics fellowship in Alabama, said in his experience, women who are farther from obstetrical care tend not to seek help when experiencing symptoms because they can’t justify the long drive or using the county’s only ambulance. Having a family doctor nearby can make a huge difference in pregnancy outcomes. 

“If they’ve got some place to go that’s 15 minutes away, then maybe they go get something checked on and find out that ‘Yeah, you are in preterm labor, but it’s early and we can stop it, and we can prolong your pregnancy and you can have a healthier baby – a baby that goes home with you rather than having to deliver early a small baby that ends up in the NICU that stays sick a lot in the first few years of life,’” he explained. 

Sherman is breaking ground not only as one of the state’s only family medicine OBs, but also by working closely with a certified nurse midwife, a rarity in Mississippi – a state with no certified midwife program. Opening the doors to certified midwives could increase the amount of care available to women.

Advanced nurse practitioners are also qualified to give prenatal care. But in Mississippi, restrictive and expensive collaboration agreements limit the care nurse practitioners can provide. 

Sherman’s partnership with the certified nurse midwife is the kind that Wayne General CEO Andrew Porter hopes the new fellowship will facilitate. 

“The FMOB (a family medicine physician who practices obstetrics) can really be a multiplier,” Porter said. “They can be the captain of a ship that has these other providers working under them and it just multiplies the amount of care that can be provided to patients.”

South Sunflower in Indianola has three family physician OBs on staff who average about 250 births a year in a county that had 263 live births in 2022. 

The hospital has been using the family medicine OB model since it opened in the 1930s, according to hospital CEO Courtney Phillips. It’s a lifeline today, where the next closest hospital is 30 miles away, and even there, there aren’t enough OB-GYNs to take care of all the deliveries. 

“So, even though the next closest hospital to deliver is 30 miles away, they may have to travel all the way to Grenada if we weren’t here, which is close to 80 miles away,” Phillips explained. 

 “There’s a big difference between licensure and credentials,” Stephens, a family medicine physician at EC Health Net in Meridian, said.

While the licensure board allows physicians to practice according to their training without restriction, physicians also need to apply for malpractice insurance coverage, which requires proving competence to the malpractice carrier, and then proving competence to get credentialed by the hospital they are joining. Both became difficult in Mississippi after the explosion of liability insurance costs in the 1990s. 

Medical liability premiums skyrocketed across the U.S. at the turn of the century, but particularly in Mississippi – known by 2001 as the “lawsuit capital of the world,” according to a 2011 case study by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – and affected physicians’ ability to practice specialties like obstetrics or neurosurgery. Mississippi was “perhaps the hardest hit of the ‘red alert states,’” a term used to denote high medical liability regions, the case study said. 

Valentine, who worked in obstetrics throughout the 1980s and had proven his competency to the board through documentation of all the procedures he performed and deliveries he attended, suddenly couldn’t afford his malpractice insurance premium when what he refers to as the “malpractice crisis” hit. 

“My malpractice insurance went up about 180% premium-wise in a year’s time,” he said. “I couldn’t justify losing money to practice OB, and then take the risk on top of that. It was almost like they were trying to push us out.”

As it stands, Mississippi family physicians interested in obstetrics have few options: pursue an official training program in another state – which often results in those physicians deciding to either leave the state altogether or stay in the state and forego obstetrics – or train unofficially in Mississippi but without the guarantee of affordable malpractice insurance or a hospital that will grant them privileges.

South Sunflower, according to Valentine, is able to utilize family physicians in obstetrics affordably because of its highly regarded staff that helps them get coverage and credentials. 

“Places like Indianola, they have a track record,” he said. “Dr. Wade Dowell has been … a champion for family medicine, doing OB and doing general family medicine for years, and so he’s got a track record, and the doctors he’s trained there – they do a good job.”

Valentine and Stephens hope the new fellowship will offer a similar standard that will help family physicians receive credentials and coverage in obstetrics at an affordable rate – though it’s never a guarantee.

“Whether every hospital in the state of Mississippi will recognize that, whether every hospital will open their doors, I don’t know,” said Valentine. “But from the standpoint of being qualified … we want to make sure that our fellowship is substantial enough that when they leave our fellowship, whether it’s one year or two years, they’re ready to practice obstetrics at the level they’re trained to do that.” 

The fellowship is one proposed solution to changing the maternal health landscape of Mississippi. But experts believe programs like it are critical in shifting the pendulum.

“It’s not going to be a cure-all for some of the obstetrics needs, and issues like infant mortality, but it’s a step,” Porter, the Wayne General CEO, said. “It’s people who are acknowledging that we have a crisis here in the state and are trying to do something about it. Here in Waynesboro, Mississippi, and the surrounding area of Meridian, and those in the Delta, we're trying to take the matter into our own hands and come up with some solutions.”

The post State’s first family medicine obstetrics fellowship hopes to increase access to maternal care in rural areas appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has again pushed back the release of a new Jackson-area flood control study, the agency announced on Monday, saying it needs more money to finish its analysis.

The study is the next step in a decades-long process to protect Jackson from Pearl River flooding. For years, local flood control officials have pushed a plan known as “One Lake” to widen the river near the capital city. But environmental advocates and downstream cities have fought back at every turn, arguing that One Lake would threaten ecosystems below Jackson and is more so a real estate scheme than a flood control plan.

The corps, which told residents in May that it has yet to endorse any proposal, originally planned to release a new environmental study for the project on Sept. 1. The new study will compare several routes for flood control, including One Lake, voluntary buyouts, elevation or floodproofing of homes, or some combination of those options.

On Aug. 31, the corps announced it was delaying the study’s release by “no later than 60 days to allow for additional analysis and coordination,” citing the large volume of comments the agency received after its public hearing in May.

But on Oct. 5, WLBT reported that the corps had ran out of money allocated to complete the study, saying the agency had spent $1 million so far. On Monday, the corps confirmed that it had “exhausted” funding. The agency has found the necessary funds, it says, but is working to get approval from the Office of Management and Budget.

A year ago, the corps announced $221 million in funding for the project through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Local sponsors of the One Lake project estimate it’d cost $340 million total.

Christi Kilroy, chief of Public Affairs for the corps’ Vicksburg District, added that the agency decided to expand the initial scope of the study. After receiving numerous comments about tributary flooding in the creeks throughout Jackson, the corps is ensuring the new study addresses those concerns.

Under its initial timeline, the agency planned to release a draft study in September, followed by another public comment period, the release of the final study in December, and then a final decision by Assistant Secretary of the Army of Civil Works Michael Connor in January. It’s unclear how far the delays have pushed back that timeline.

The post Army Corps cites lack of funding in delay of Jackson flood control study 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.

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.

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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.”

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