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Mississippians will go to the polls Tuesday with an opportunity to vote in races on the county level such as for supervisor, and in races on the state level such as for governor and legislators.

The most high profile statewide race on the ballot Tuesday will be for the office of lieutenant governor. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann of Jackson is facing state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville in a contentious Republican primary. Hosemann and McDaniel for weeks have flooded mailboxes and statewide airwaves with bitter attacks about one another.

READ MORE: Coming soon to screens near you: Mississippi election ad wars

Lesser-known candidate Tiffany Longino of Rankin County is also on the ballot in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

The winner of that primary will in November face political novice D. Ryan Grover of Hattiesburg, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.

Incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves, who is seeking reelection, faces two lesser known candidates on Tuesday in the Republican primary: John Witcher of Flowood and David Grady Hardigree of Jackson.

The winner of that GOP primary will face Brandon Presley of Nettleton, a four-term northern district public service commissioner who is unopposed in the Democratic primary for governor.

Three Democrats are on the ballot for the office of commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce to face incumbent Republican Andy Gipson. They are Robert “Brad” Bradford, Bethany Hill and Terry Rogers II.

Republican Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is being challenged in the Republican primary by Mitch Young.

In the primary elections, a candidate must garner a majority vote to avoid a runoff three weeks after Tuesday. So, in any election with more than two candidates, a runoff is possible.

Voters will have to decide whether they want to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary. They cannot cross over to vote. In the November general election, people can cross over and vote for a gubernatorial candidate of one party and a candidate for lieutenant of another party.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. People with election questions can call their local circuit clerks.

PODCAST: McDaniel-Hosemann contest headlines Tuesday’s party primaries

Based on early numbers, the turnout could be high. The number of absentee ballots requested and returned, meaning the person requesting the ballot has voted and the ballot has been returned to the local circuit clerks, already exceeds the numbers for the 2019 primaries. Political observers often equate higher early voting or absentee numbers to overall higher election turnout.

Through the weekend, 45,199 absentee ballots have been requested and 40,698 already have been returned to the local circuit clerks. This compared with the final numbers in the 2019 party primaries when 42,096 were requested and 38,237 were returned.

Absentee ballots must be postmarked as of Election Day to be counted.

An independent analysis of the absentee numbers compiled by the office of Secretary of State Michael Watson indicate high interest in the Republican primary. According to reports, there is high interest in a number of local races as well as the lieutenant governor’s contest between Hosemann and McDaniel.

According to those compilations, as of Monday, the return of absentee ballots in the Republican primary is 129% more than the total early voting count in 2019. And, of course, people still have time to return their absentee ballots, though it is too late to request an absentee ballot.

The post Heated Republican lieutenant governor’s race highlights Tuesday primary election ballot appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A Jackson-based LGBTQ+ organization is withdrawing its volunteer support from this year’s Mississippi Book Festival due to the addition to a panel of former Vice President Mike Pence, a current Republican presidential candidate who is known for opposing the rights of gay and transgender people. 

In a press release, the Capital City Pride board of directors wrote that Pence, whose long track record of anti-LGBTQ+ actions includes opposing same-sex marriage and federal funding for some HIV/AIDS prevention, “directly contradicts” the inclusive values the nonprofit advocates for in Mississippi. 

“Our mission revolves around fostering an environment of equality, diversity and understanding, and we believe that supporting voices that promote hate and intolerance is antithetical to these goals,” the press release reads.  

Since it was founded in 2019, Capital City Pride has staffed the “writer’s breakfast” at the Two Mississippi Museums, an event for the writers and panelists, said Jason McCarty, the nonprofit’s consulting director. 

But after Pence was announced as a panelist, McCarty said he received dozens of calls from volunteers who were concerned about his anti-LGBTQ+ views. Now, about 25 volunteers with Capital City Pride will no longer staff the breakfast or an LGBTQ+ panel called “Out in Focus.” 

Though McCarty said he has a great relationship with the Mississippi Book Festival, it did not seem appropriate for the nonprofit, which advocates for safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people, to contribute to an event Pence might attend. 

Pence is slated to discuss his autobiography “So Help Me God,” which is about how his evangelical Christian values have shaped his personal life and politics, at 2:45 p.m. in Capitol Room 216. Former U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper will moderate. 

It was Harper’s suggestion to invite Pence, said Ellen Daniels, the festival’s executive director. Every year, the former congressman invites a guest with the board’s approval. Harper has also been a fiscal sponsor of the festival.

Though she respected Capital City Pride’s decision and thought the press release was “pitch perfect,” Daniels said that ultimately the Mississippi Book Festival’s goal is to be a big-tent event. She urged people not to boycott. 

“I want to put this into a kind of perspective,” she said. “Mike Pence and his session — he is one person out of over 160-plus authors appearing at the festival this year. Many of those authors have had their books banned. He is one hour out of a day with 47 hours of panel opportunities.” 

Daniels also noted that last year, the festival faced pushback for refusing to rescind its invitation to Alice Walker, the acclaimed author who faced criticism for praising a book by an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. Other controversial authors at prior festivals have included Joyce Carol Oates and Karl Rove. 

“We are a free speech festival,” Daniels said. “There is something for every type of reader at the festival, and we do not censor or ban books or authors.” 

Pence has opposed LGBTQ+ rights since he was a congressional candidate in 2000, according to the New York Times. The former governor of Indiana launched his presidential campaign this year by advocating for a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors. He’s also called for a ban on trans people serving in the U.S. military. 

McCarty said that while Capital City Pride abhors Pence’s views, the nonprofit is trying to walk a line between not staffing, but still attending, the festival.

“It’s kind of a gut punch but it’s also like he is not going to run us off an event that we’ve always participated in,” McCarty said. 

Capital City Pride is now asking people to attend Pence’s panel, which will be broadcast on C-SPAN, and wear attire supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

The panel comes amid several efforts across the state to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ Mississippians. Last week, the Harrison County School Board approved a policy requiring students to dress according to the gender they were assigned at birth. 

Earlier this year, lawmakers banned gender-affirming care for trans youth and the University of Mississippi Medical Center shuttered an LGBTQ+ clinic after it came under legislative scrutiny. 

The post LGBTQ+ group protesting Mike Pence book festival appearance appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In the year since Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch received exclusive responsibility to prosecute law enforcement-involved shootings, her office has moved forward on only a fraction of the nearly 50 cases. 

To date, Fitch is pursuing charges against six former Rankin County officers who beat and tortured two Black men in January. She has also sought an indictment for the Oct. 6, 2022, shooting of 15-year-old Jaheim McMillan in Gulfport. In three cases, the attorney general’s office reviewed the shootings and found that officers’ actions were justified. 

Since July 1, 2022, when the law went into effect, through the end of July 2023, 23 people have died in shootings by law enforcement, according to records from the Department of Public Safety. Those fatalities account for half of the officer shootings in the year. 

Investigation into these law enforcement agencies starts with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which shares its findings with the attorney general’s office. The attorney general’s office then is supposed to present the case to a grand jury in the county where the shooting happened, and if the jury chooses to indict, the office would prosecute, according to the law. 

Fitch’s prosecution of the five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and a former Richland Police Department officer came only after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the officers pleading guilty in federal court. 

“This brutal attack caused more than physical harm to these two individual victims; it severed that vital trust with the people,” Fitch said in a Thursday statement. “This abuse of power will not be tolerated.”

She added that the men who committed the heinous acts are an exception, rather than the rule, and that most law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to protect the community. 

Meanwhile, the attorney general’s office declined to prosecute three times and did not secure an indictment for one officer-involved shooting case that happened between July 2022 and July 2023. The majority of cases – fatal and nonfatal – remain under investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation or the AG’s office, said spokesperson Debbee Hancock. 

“The Attorney General’s Office is committed to justice in these and all cases, and upon completion of MBI’s investigation, we undertake a thorough review of all facts and law to determine if use of force was appropriate in the individual instance,” Hancock said in a statement. 

The attorney general’s office presented the Oct. 6, 2022, shooting of McMillan to a grand jury, which in February declined to indict and find criminal conduct for the Gulfport police officer who shot the teenager outside a Family Dollar store. 

“As such, no further criminal action will be taken by this Office in this matter,” the office said in a February statement. 

Katrina Mateen has called for answers and accountability for her son’s death following the shooting and since the grand jury ruling, the Sun Herald reported. 

The attorney general’s office also reviewed the use of force in three cases and declined to prosecute: 

• July 14, 2022: A Forrest County sheriff’s deputy shot 45-year-old Corey Maurice McCarty Hughes, a Black Hattiesburg man, whose family was trying to get him into mental health treatment.
• Aug. 22, 2022: A Biloxi police officer shot 41-year-old Mable Arrington, a Black woman, outside a housing complex.
• Oct. 19, 2022: Lafayette County sheriff’s deputies responding to a domestic call shot 44-year-old Jason Smith in Oxford. Smith argued with a woman and her children were barricaded inside their room, WTVA reported.

Family members of McCarty Hughes, the Hattiesburg man, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against 10 unnamed sheriff’s deputies and the county. 

Other than the January Rankin County incident, there have been no reviews or indictments for the other 18 officer shootings that happened this year. Community members have called for answers and the release of any existing body camera footage in several of those incidents. 

In Indianola, an officer accused of shooting an 11-year-old boy in the chest has been suspended without pay and faces legal action: a $5 million lawsuit against him and the city and potential criminal charges filed by the boy’s mother. 

District attorneys can handle cases of law enforcement officers whose use of force results in death, but these indictments are not common in Mississippi or around the country, especially as officers are legally able to use lethal force if they fear for their lives, Mississippi Today previously reported. 

However, sometimes officers can face criminal charges for actions while on the job. In May, the Hinds County District Attorney’s office secured indictments against three former Jackson Police Department officers for the death of 41-year-old Keith Murriel. In a federal lawsuit, his family argues the officers used excessive force and failed to render medical aid.

And in a rare twist, Fitch is at odds with the Hinds County DA’s office, urging a reversal in the culpable negligence manslaughter conviction of Anthony Fox, a former Jackson police officer convicted a year ago in the 2019 death of George Robinson.

The post AG Fitch has resolved few officer-involved shootings appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Aug. 7, 1904

Diplomat Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit. He was a member of the “Black Cabinet,” which President Franklin D. Roosevelt consulted on minority issues. 

After heading the Howard University Political Science Department for more than 20 years, he went to the United Nations and served as its mediator on Palestine. After negotiating the 1948 armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states, he returned home to receive a ticket-tape parade on Broadway. In 1950, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Bunche took part in the civil rights movement for decades, served on the NAACP board and helped Martin Luther King Jr. lead the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 in Alabama. 

“To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity,” he said. “We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.”

The post On this day in 1904 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today political reporters Bobby Harrison, Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance break down Tuesday’s election where party nominees will be selected for the Nov. 7 general election. Candidates from the county level to the state level will be on the ballot Tuesday. 

The post Podcast: McDaniel-Hosemann contest headliner for Tuesday’s party primaries appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large and Cartoonist Marshall Ramsey continues his series of author interviews leading up to the Mississippi Book Festival on August 19, 2023 at the State Capitol.

Vincent J. Venturini was baptized in St. Mary’s Catholic Church when South Jackson was still in that parish. His classmates and schoolmates at St. Joseph High School in the late 1960s included many of the Lebanese and Italian residents of West Jackson. He acquired an appreciation of West Jackson and its residents in those high school years. Venturini is the co-author with Doug Shanks of “One Direction Home: A History of South Jackson”. Venturini’s latest book, “Once We Crowned Royalty” tells the story of West Jackson’s history and touches on downtown Jackson’s retail past. 

The post Mississippi Stories: Vincent J. Venturini appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Current presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence will come to Jackson on Aug. 19 to speak at the Mississippi Book Festival, according to the festival’s website. 

The event’s website notes that Pence will speak with former U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper at 2:45 p.m. in Room 216 at the Capitol to discuss his recently published autobiography “So Help Me God.” 

“We’re thrilled that he’ll come to visit us in Mississippi at this year’s Mississippi Book Festival,” Harper, who served with Pence in Congress, told Mississippi Today. 

Harper said he intends to discuss the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol with Pence, who faced pressure from his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, to abuse the vice president’s ceremonial role in certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.  

“Vice President Pence and his families’ lives were in danger,” Harper said. “And I bring maybe a little interesting perspective in that when that happened, I was actually in the House chamber.” 

The announcement of Pence’s Magnolia State visit comes at a time when Trump, his current opponent, is facing federal charges in connection to his role in the insurrection. 

The annual festival is nonpartisan, and Harper, who represented central Mississippi in Congress for 10 years, said the former vice president is not planning to conduct any presidential campaign events during his visit.

“He is coming in special just for the book festival, and he’ll fly in and immediately fly out,” Harper said. 

Pence has visited Mississippi before. He campaigned for Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in Biloxi during the 2019 statewide election cycle, and he visited the Magnolia State with former President Donald Trump to support U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s 2018 campaign during a special election. 

Before being sworn in as vice president, Pence also spent Thanksgiving in Mississippi in 2016, where his son, a Marine, was stationed. 

The Mississippi Book Festival is an annual event that takes place each summer in and around the state Capitol in downtown Jackson. The event’s leaders call it a “literary lawn party” that features panel discussions about literature, food, art and politics.

The post Former VP Mike Pence coming to Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After months of inaction on claims of widespread campaign finance violations this election cycle, Attorney General Lynn Fitch says she’s investigating a PAC run by lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel’s campaign treasurer.

The Invest in Mississippi PAC has been running hundreds of thousand of dollars in ads attacking incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. It has been fueled by $885,000 in donations from out-of-state super PACs.

The Invest in Mississippi political action committee was created in July by Wisconsin political operative Thomas Datwyler. McDaniel lists Datwyler as treasurer for his campaign proper, which has also faced claims of flagrant campaign finance law violations from Hosemann. Datwyler has a history of running afoul of Federal Election Commission campaign finance rules with several congressional campaigns.

In a press release Friday afternoon, Fitch said her office has alerted the Invest PAC of “an investigation into potential criminal violations under the Mississippi Election Code, as well as other statutes.” Fitch said Mississippi’s campaign finance law “generously” protects free speech, “But that does not mean there is no line protecting the people from illegitimate influence of our democratic system.”

“The people of Mississippi should be able to expect that those who participate in our electoral process will not seek to exploit this careful balance and step over that line,” Fitch wrote, “and in this instance, there is evidence to suggest that has occurred here.”

READ MORE: Out of state PACs dump dark money into McDaniel’s lieutenant governor’s race

A spokesperson for Fitch on Friday said the office was also investigating another election complaint filed by Hosemann, and that it had looked into another he filed but has closed that investigation.

Neither McDaniel nor Datwyler has responded to requests for comment this week on campaign finance issues and allegations.

Fitch’s office said the two new investigations were prompted by complaints Hosemann’s campaign filed this week with her office.

Hosemann’s campaign filed such a complaint on Aug. 3, one of several he has made since March about McDaniel’s campaign or affiliated PACs.

The latest complaint filed by Hosemann campaign attorney Spencer Ritchie opens with, “Once again, appallingly, I write to request that you investigate further violations of Mississippi law relating to state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign for lieutenant governor.”

The complaint claims that the super PAC to state PAC donations are an attempt to bypass Mississippi’s $1,000 a year limit on corporate donations to a Mississippi candidate or PAC. It says that even federal law allowing unlimited corporate donations for independent expenditures in a race would not cover Invest PAC’s actions because its expenditures “cannot be classified as independent.” The complaint notes that “the contact person for the PAC is Thomas Datwyler (and) Mr. Datwyler is simultaneously the contact person for Mr. McDaniel’s candidate committee.” It also noted that the PAC does not appear to be claiming its spending is separate from a campaign because it did not file an independent expenditure report with the state as required.

“The dark money PAC and Chris McDaniel are synonymous,” Hosemann said in a statement Friday. “They have dumped almost $1 million in this campaign in the last week to steal the Mississippi lieutenant governor’s race and your vote. Do we really think a Washington dark money PAC cares about Mississippi citizens? Vote on Aug. 8 to send them the answer.”

Fitch as AG is the only statewide official with clear authority to enforce the state’s weak campaign finance laws. She has faced criticism this election cycle over lack of action on allegations of campaign finance violations, particularly in the lieutenant governor’s race. At the recent Neshoba County fair, other officials or candidates called for reform.

READ MORE: Chris McDaniel, Lynn Fitch show that Mississippi might as well not have campaign finance laws

Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson said he would likely ask lawmakers to give him enforcement authority. He said he isn’t seeking more power, “But when people do not do their jobs, I will stand in the gap for Mississippians” – a dig at Fitch.

The list of McDaniel’s legally questionable maneuvers with campaign money is lengthy. But one came early in his campaign, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A state PAC McDaniel created received $475,000 from a secretive Virginia dark-money nonprofit corporation. His PAC then funneled $465,000 of it to his campaign.

State law limits such corporate donations to $1,000 a year to a candidate or PAC. So the donation was $474,000 over the legal limit.

McDaniel’s PAC initially hid some of these transactions with incomplete, inaccurate reporting to the secretary of state’s office. But eventually, after questions from Mississippi Today, he first chalked it up to “clerical errors.”

READ MORE: Chris McDaniel’s reports deny accurate public accounting of campaign money

Then, McDaniel said Mississippi’s campaign finance laws are improper, but he doesn’t have time to mount a legal challenge, so his campaign returned the money to his PAC. McDaniel said his PAC then returned the money to the dark money group, and he shut down the PAC.

READ MORE: Hundreds of thousands of dollars unaccounted, questionable in McDaniel’s campaign report

UPDATE: A spokesperson for AG Lynn Fitch’s office has provided updated information on investigations of incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s election complaints filed with the attorney general’s office. This story has been updated to include that information.

The post Fitch says she’s investigating PAC run by Chris McDaniel treasurer appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A three-judge panel of the United States 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Mississippi’s lifetime ban on voting for people convicted of certain felonies, saying it is unconstitutional because it inflicts cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 2-1 ruling released Friday, the panel sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan III in the Southern District of Mississippi with instructions to find the state’s lifetime ban on voting to be unconstitutional.

The majority said, “By severing former offenders from the body politic forever, Section 241 (the lifetime ban provision of the state Constitution) ensures that they will never be fully rehabilitated, continues to punish them beyond the terms their culpability requires and serves no protective function to society. It is thus a cruel and unusual punishment.”

The Court of Appeals decision comes on the heels of the United States Supreme Court refusing in June to hear another case seeking to find Mississippi’s lifetime felony voting ban unconstitutional. That case sought to have the felony voting ban declared unconstitutional because it was originally adopted as part of the 1890 Constitution in an attempt to prevent Black Mississippians from voting.

The lawsuit that was addressed by the three-judge panel was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Mississippi Center for Justice and others on behalf of Mississippians who have lost their voting rights. The office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch opposed the lawsuit on behalf of the state.

It is possible the state may appeal the decision of the three-judge panel to the entire 5^th Circuit.

“We are overjoyed with the ruling obviously and with the prospects of tens of thousand Mississippians regaining the right to vote,’ said Brad Heard, head of voting rights with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “We absolutely agree with the court that permanent disenfranchisement is cruel and unusual punishment under the 8^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

The opinion overturning the lifetime voting ban was written by Circuit Judge James Dennis and joined by Carolyn Dineen King, both of whom have senior status on the 5^th Circuit. Judge Edith Jones dissented.

She argued that the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1974 decision already had ruled that such lifetime bans were allowed. The 1974 ruling said a lifetime ban did not violate equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution or in other words was not unconstitutional because it allowed a certain group of people to be treated differently.

But the Supreme Court did not rule on whether it was cruel and unusual punishment.

“The consequences of committing a felony rarely ends at the prison walls…,” Jones wrote. “Completing a prison sentence does not entitle felons to all the rights they previously possessed.”

The two judges pointed out that when the Supreme Court made its 1974 ruling that many more states imposed lifetime bans on voting. But now Mississippi is among a small minority of states to do so.

The 5^th Circuit majority wrote, “In so excluding former offenders from a basic aspect of democratic life, often long after their sentences have been served, Mississippi inflicts a disproportionate punishment that has been rejected by a majority of the states and, in the independent judgment of this court informed by our precedents, is at odds with society’s evolving standards of decency.”

The framers at the time admitted they placed the lifetime ban in the Mississippi Constitution as a tool to keep African Americans from voting. Those crimes placed in the constitution where conviction costs a person the right to vote are bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, bigamy and burglary.

Under the original language of the constitution, a person could be convicted of cattle rustling and lose the right to vote, but those convicted of murder or rape would still be able to vote — even while incarcerated. Murder and rape now also are exclusionary.

In the 5^th Circuit ruling, the majority pointed out that the Constitution granted the Legislature the authority to restore voting rights, presumably, to ensure that white Mississippians were not permanently banned from voting. In modern times, the Legislature usually restores voting rights to a handful (usually no more than five people) each session.

The post 5th Circuit panel strikes down Mississippi’s lifetime felony voting ban appeared first on Mississippi Today.

GREENWOOD — U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who entered the national spotlight by leading the select committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 insurrection, had specific instructions for Leflore County voters on Wednesday night. 

“I want you to get your popcorn, I want you to get your Coke out, and I want you to watch TV tomorrow,” Thompson said. “Tomorrow will be historic. It proves that in America, no one is above the law.” 

Around 50 attendees of the Greenwood Voters League applauded the congressman’s comments which were a clear reference to former President Donald Trump, who was arraigned Thursday in Washington on four federal charges relating to the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

Trump, who is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for a second term as president, pleaded not guilty to the federal government’s charges against him. Still, Thompson took pride in the historic role he played on the committee.

“As you know, I chaired the Jan. 6 committee,” Thompson told the attendees. “We spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of taxpayer’s money getting it right. But it took us almost two years to convince the Department of Justice they needed to get involved.” 

But while Thompson recounted his efforts on the committee that eventually issued criminal referrals to the Justice Department about the former president, Brandon Presley, the Democratic candidate for governor, looked on and listened to the congressman’s speech with a somewhat muted expression. 

The gubernatorial candidate followed Thompson’s remarks with a nearly 20-minute stump speech that included his usual round of policy proposals on Medicaid expansion, grocery tax cuts and his pro-life beliefs. 

But it contained no mention of Trump, the indictment or Washington politics. 

When asked by reporters about Thompson’s comments on the indictment and the select committee, Presley largely dodged the question and pivoted to Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal, a common theme of his campaign. 

“The indictments we’re watching are the indictments that have come down and will continue probably to come down in this welfare scandal where tens of millions of dollars have been stolen from Mississippians,” Presley said. “Those are the indictments I’m spending a lot of time watching.” 

North Mississippi’s current utility regulator, Presley has intentionally cultivated a relationship with Thompson, Mississippi’s current longest-serving congressional representative and only the second Black official to represent Mississippi in Washington since Reconstruction. 

Thompson, Mississippi’s lone Democratic official in Washington, endorsed Presley on the same day Presley announced his candidacy for governor, something the congressman did not do for former Attorney General Jim Hood’s 2019 bid for the Governor’s Mansion. 

Presley’s likely Republican opponent in November, incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves, took to Twitter to highlight Trump’s charges and point out Presley’s relationship with Thompson. 

“The Biden Administration’s attempts to interfere in the election by weaponizing law enforcement are corrupt and wrong,” Reeves said. “They have proven they will do anything to ‘get’ Donald Trump, and trample ethics, the rule of law, and our national unity to do it. And it all started with Brandon Presley’s top backer, Bennie Thompson.”

The incumbent governor has also attempted to use national issues to tie Presley, a moderate Democrat, to other liberals across the country, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Reeves even challenged Newsom to a debate over gun rights.

“He and the governor of California deserve each other,” Presley said of Reeves on Wednesday. “They both belong to a jacuzzi-soaking, penny-loafer-wearing bunch of elitists. They don’t know anything about where we are.”

The Wednesday night scenario likely serves as a case study for how Presley plans to manage his partisan label in a conservative state throughout the duration of his campaign while maintaining his relationship with more traditional Democratic officials and navigating controversial national issues. 

While speaking to groups like the influential Greenwood Voters League, the Democratic candidate has consistently focused on issues that he believes would directly impact the state and has largely avoided speaking on national politics. 

Reeves is expected to capture the GOP’s nomination on Tuesday’s primary election, then would compete against Presley during the Nov. 7 general election. 

The post Rep. Thompson touts Trump indictments while Presley focuses on Mississippi welfare scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.