Democrat Mike Espy had $3.17 million cash on hand at the end of September, while Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith had nearly $1.5 million.

Reports filed Thursday show Democratic challenger Mike Espy outraised incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith more than 4-to-1 between July and September.

Espy raised more than $4 million for the quarter, bringing his total for the race to $5.3 million. Hyde-Smith raised less than $815,000 for the quarter, and $2.85 million total.

Espy’s report showed he had $3.17 million cash on hand at the end of September. Hyde-Smith’s showed she had nearly $1.5 million.

Espy appears to be using his more than 2-to-1 cash advantage by vastly out-advertising Hyde-Smith so far in the critical home stretch before the Nov. 3 election, flooding the airwaves across Mississippi with his messaging. Espy this week is spending $1.01 million on television and radio ads, according to FCC reports, compared to Hyde-Smith spending just $147,000.

Espy’s latest influx of cash is part of a national wave of mostly small donations to Democratic congressional campaigns after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, although Espy has outraised Hyde-Smith in all but one reporting period this election cycle.

“This is a well-funded campaign,” Espy said this week, but he said that more importantly, his is a well-organized campaign that can quickly put the influx of money to use in getting his message out and turning out voters.

“We have the best data set, numbers and algorithms,” Espy said. “… There are 100,000 African Americans in Mississippi who haven’t voted since President Obama in 2008. We know who they are, have their emails and cell numbers and addresses. We have 40 to 50 people out knocking on doors — of course, wearing Espy for Senate masks and gloves and PPE.”

Espy said he believes his message is also reaching, and resonating with, white voters.

“I want to represent all of Mississippi,” Espy said, repeating a refrain he’s used since he announced his candidacy in 2019.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

Austin Barbour, a state and national GOP strategist and fundraiser, said Espy’s record fundraising hauls will be a boon to his campaign, but questioned whether it would be enough to overcome Hyde-Smith’s lead in a very red state.

“Money moves the needle, yes — allows you to put your message out,” Barbour said. “But the president (Trump) is going to get a tremendous turnout in Mississippi, and Sen. Hyde-Smith is going to benefit from that massive turnout. That allows her campaign not to have to rely so much on campaign funds for television.”

Barbour continued: “What she’s got to do in these closing three weeks is with the dollars she has, she has to remind, not show but remind, voters, ‘I’m the conservative,’ and Mike Espy representing Mississippi would be a liberal member of the Senate trying to represent a conservative state … I think it’s a really easy thing to do because of her record, and because of the things Mike Espy has campaigned on, and Mike Espy would put things that much closer to Democrats having a majority in the Senate.”

Barbour said Espy’s raising and spending has been “unheard of for a Democrat” in Mississippi in recent history, but noted most of the bounty is from the national “Democratic machine” and not a groundswell of support in the state.

Barbour said that in the pandemic, with limits on in-person campaigning and door knocking, television and other broadcast advertising will likely be a key factor in the race.

“I think you could argue more people are watching television, glued to it,” Barbour said. “It can be particularly effective in Mississippi because we are not overwhelmed with TV campaign ads like people in Georgia or South Carolina or Arizona are.”

Michael Rejebian, who has worked on multiple campaigns, said a sizable fundraising advantage for a Democrat can help level the playing field in a deep red state like Mississippi.

“The best problem any campaign can have is how to spend money you may not have anticipated having,” said Rejebian, who worked on Democrat Jim Hood’s 2019 gubernatorial campaign that was significantly outraised by eventual winner Republican Tate Reeves.

“Putting that money into an air and ground war to attract undecided voters and increase turnout among supporters is crucial as a campaign enters the final weeks. You can increase your TV, radio, digital, mail and field operations, which certainly helps level the playing field when you’re running as a Democrat in a deep red state. The challenges are still there, of course, but they may not look so daunting when your bank account is healthy.”

Mississippi State University political scientist Marty Wiseman said it is highly unusual in Mississippi for a Democratic candidate to outraise a Republican opponent.

“It is unheard of for a Republican incumbent in Mississippi to be outraised by a challenger,” Wiseman said. “I guess her campaign feels the money is not necessary.”

Instead of focusing primarily on television and internet advertising, Wiseman said Espy should invest in “putting boots on the ground” in Democratic strongholds to turn out voters.

“That takes a lot of work,” he said, but concluded Espy might have a chance based on what appears to be many Republicans taking the race for granted and Hyde-Smith’s often sparse campaigning.

But he cautioned: “You see time and time again in Mississippi where the Democratic candidate looks promising, but then the Democratic candidate ends up claiming a moral victory with 47% of the vote.”

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Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s first 2020 attack of Mike Espy foreshadows a contentious two-and-a-half weeks before the Nov. 3 Senate election.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent running for re-election on Nov. 3, released an attack ad of Democratic challenger Mike Espy this week, foreshadowing a contentious two-and-a-half weeks before the election.

Espy, meanwhile, released two new ads this week touting his desire to reach across the aisle and “deliver for Mississippi.”

The attack ad from Hyde-Smith follows her campaign’s messaging this week that Espy is “desperate” and “is still losing.” Earlier this cycle, Espy released two attacks ads on Hyde-Smith.

“In the election for Senate, you have a clear choice,” a narrator in the Hyde-Smith ad says. “Mike Espy voted to raise your taxes but refused to pay his on time. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to cut your taxes and grow our economy. Mike Espy voted to give taxpayer funded healthcare to illegal aliens. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to help rural hospitals with more funding for healthcare. Mike Espy worked as a lobbyist for a foreign dictator charged with war crimes. Cindy Hyde-Smith supports America’s military and law enforcement.”

READ MORE: Espy, in 2018, discusses criticism that he lobbied for Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo. 

An Espy ad that first began airing on Thursday features a Jackson woman, Jennie Eichelberger, discussing why she believes Espy is a better choice than Hyde-Smith. 

“Mississippi is a great place to raise a family, but I’m worried our kids will have to leave here to get better jobs,” Eichelberger says, looking directly into the camera. “We need someone in the U.S. Senate who knows how to promote this state. Mike Espy has been delivering for Mississippi his whole life. Cindy Hyde-Smith is costing us jobs, talking about public hangings, refusing to support changing the state flag. It’s not who we are today.” 

Earlier in the week, Espy released an ad in which he touts working across the aisle.

“I was Mississippi’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction, and I’ve always fought to deliver for our state,” Espy says in the ad that first aired on Sunday. “I’ve passed laws with Republicans,  like Thad Cochran and President Reagan, to bring good jobs here. And as Secretary of Agriculture, I opened markets for Mississippi all around the world.”

Espy continued: “I approve this message because I do what’s best for Mississippi regardless of party, and I know how to get our fair share in Washington.”

The Hyde-Smith and Espy campaigns plan to flood Mississippi airwaves with ads between now and Election Day. The latest campaign finance reports, which will show how much money each campaign has to spend in the waning days of the election, are due to be submitted by the end of the day Thursday.

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In the beginning, it was simple curiosity. Over time, that casual curiosity grew into a deep friendship and dogged determination to keep a promise for a dying wish.

Such is the unlikely journey of Suzi Altman of Brandon, on a mission to preserve Margaret’s Grocery in Vicksburg.

Altman’s friendship with Rev. H.D. Dennis and his wife Margaret Dennis began in 2001. The reverend promised Margaret a castle if she married him. She did, and he began construction in 1979, using reclaimed and recycled materials for the build. 

Before he died in 2009, the reverend told Altman he was a prisoner of war in World War II and the Nazis taught him how to lay brick. Architects and contractors from around the country have marveled at the castle’s staying power. Only advanced age and illness brought his never-ending project to an end. The ravages of time and thieves have severely damaged the property. Dennis asked Altman to promise she would save the castle he built for his lady love. Altman has established the Mississippi Folk Art Foundation to preserve and protect the site.

“It’s not about me,” Altman said. “It’s about preserving fantastic folk art and a part of Mississippi’s culture.”

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Inside an at-risk voter’s journey to ensure safe voting conditions in her Delta town

Jackie Lucas is a lifelong voter who had concerns about voting in her small Mound Bayou precinct during the pandemic. When she tried to work with elected officials to change it, she encountered systemic dysfunction at every level.

By Kelsey Davis Betz | Oct. 15, 2020

MOUND BAYOU — Jackie Lucas has never missed a vote. The state of Mississippi has never made it so difficult for her to do so. That is, until the pandemic hit.

Lucas, a Black senior citizen with diabetes, did not feel safe voting in her small, enclosed voting place at Mound Bayou’s city hall. Her town is known for its civic engagement; it’s not unusual for folks to sit shoulder-to-shoulder while waiting to cast a vote.

According to precinct voter population estimates based on the 2010 census, Mound Bayou’s voting precinct serves 1,965 people, which is about 70% higher than the state’s average precinct.

“We just don’t have space there to do any kind of distancing,” Lucas said.

She also didn’t feel confident that the president wouldn’t try to undermine her absentee vote.

The most logical solution she saw was to work with her elected officials to move the voting location from the small city hall to the spacious high school gym less than half a mile away.

She eventually prevailed, but not without jumping through multiple hoops and first hearing from every elected official she asked that there was nothing they could do.

About 64 days before the election, Lucas reached out to Shelia Perry, her county election commissioner, to discuss changing Mound Bayou’s voting location, but said she never heard back. Lucas then heard from the Mound Bayou mayor that Perry had reached out and said nothing could be done.

Indeed, Perry told Mississippi Today that she reached out to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office for guidance, but says she was told that voting locations must be changed 90 days before an election.

In all, Lucas sought help from her mayor, election commissioner, the board attorney for the election commissioners and her state representative.

While some of them genuinely tried to help her come up with safer, alternative voting solutions, none of them knew that there was actually no law binding polling places to be changed by a certain amount of time before an election.

Even Gov. Tate Reeves, when asked for clarity about what the process was to change a voting location, did not know the answer.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m not an expert on election law,” Reeves said. “If it is 90 days, and this was a major issue in a county, we’ve had the coronavirus here in the county for a while now. We knew that elections were coming up in November.”

This was something Lucas heard while trying to get her voting location changed — not just that she was out of luck, but that she should have thought of this sooner.

“I asked Mrs. Lucas why we didn’t look at this before 90 days, and she was just very candid in saying she just didn’t think about it before recently,” said state Rep. Abe Hudson, D-Shelby. “And I totally understand, but I’m glad she brought the conversation up.”

Hudson did try to help come up with solutions to mitigate virus spread on Election Day, like securing tents and fans so the election could be moved outside. He also sent grant opportunities to Delta-based circuit clerks to help cover the cost of that.

“I will be honest, I give (Lucas) all the credit in the world for bringing it up,” Hudson said.

Voting rights advocate and law student Teresa Jones said it’s the responsibility of elected officials to ensure safe voting on behalf of their constituents.

“The responsibility shouldn’t lie upon the constituent to make sure she’s able to vote. The polling location for her, not being actually safe — that’s a necessity that should have been planned for at the state level and at the county level,” Jones said.

Jones continued: “Obviously, it seems like this is something that’s very important to her and she’s going out of her way to make it so that she is able to do it and do it safely. There’s no telling how many other people maybe are feeling the exact same way, and they don’t know to call their elections commissioner. They don’t know to call their state (representative) because a lot of times the average voter don’t even know who those people are.”

Born and raised in Mound Bayou, Lucas grew up watching her mother work on elections and serve as an alderman for 20 years. She remembers the KKK’s violent threats against the first Black Bolivar County supervisor voted into office, and how he fled for safety to Mound Bayou. And there were the stories she was brought up on about what her grandfather went through to vote as a Black Mississippian during the Jim Crow era.

“My grandfather used to speak about when the white people in Bolivar County didn’t want the Black people to vote, (the Black people) would have to wait in long lines,” Lucas said. “They (the white people) would give them water and food contaminated with a laxative and they’d all have to leave the polls. The trickery of voter suppression, it lives on. It’s just different ways to try to keep Black people from voting.”

She could have voted absentee or voted early because of her age or found times during Election Day that were likely to be less crowded. The issue reached beyond just her, though. With the coronavirus disproportionately killing Black people, she has now lost track of the number of people she knows who died from it.

In Bolivar County, where she lives, COVID-19 has infected 1,993 people — and 61% of them were Black. So forcing people to vote in a space that the CDC said would lend itself to virus transmission felt like another instance where Black people must risk their lives to vote and white leaders don’t care, she said.

“I know the current president is not going to look at this and say, ‘Oh yes, they need to have a bigger space (to vote).’ But the people of Mound Bayou should be able to vote and they ought to be safe voting,” she said.

And, of course, not casting a vote was never an option for her.

“You can’t protest and say, ‘I’m not going to vote, I’m not going there to risk my life.’ That’s what is desired,” Lucas said.

Ultimately, it was determined that either miscommunication, misunderstanding or misinformation transpired between the Mississippi secretary of state’s office and Perry.

“I am not sure who the election commissioner from Bolivar County spoke with, but there is no hard deadline to change a polling place,” said Kendra James, assistant secretary of state for communications and publications, in an email to Mississippi Today. “Again, we recommend making all polling place changes no later than 60 days before the election so there is sufficient time to notify the affected voters, but there is not a hard deadline.”

James also said that the secretary of state’s office had asked the counties to reach out to their polling locations to make sure they were still available for Election Day and suitable for voting under current conditions.

“If the county cannot use the polling place or has a location better suitable for current conditions, such as a facility that allows more social distancing or a facility that allows one door for entry and exit, the county was encouraged to change the location,” James said. “Through our (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) CARES Grant funding, we have also offered to reimburse counties for purchasing/renting reasonably priced tents for open-air voting and one table per precinct to allow for voting outside.”

Still, there has been confusion at every level of government about this, and state leadership has not elected to make voting during a pandemic easier for anyone.

Mississippi, which already had some of the most restrictive early voting laws in the nation, did less than most other states to make it easier to vote early in person or by mail to avoid crowded precincts on Election Day and to avoid possible exposure to the coronavirus.

Even before the pandemic, most states allowed no-excuse early voting.

But in Mississippi, only those who will be away from their homes on Election Day, the elderly and disabled are allowed to vote early. In the 2020 session, the Legislature did add a provision to allow those who are in a physician-imposed quarantine because of the coronavirus and those who are caretakers of those impacted by the coronavirus to vote early. But that provision has been interpreted narrowly by the state Supreme Court.

Exactly 30 days before the Nov. 3 election, Lucas got word that the county would work with her to change her polling place. As it turns out, county supervisors (and only county supervisors) have the authority to change a voting location any time before the election, as long as it’s due to an emergency.

During an Oct. 3 Bolivar County Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Olanda Morton, who represents Mound Bayou, asked the board attorney to help get the location changed. The same attorney who represents the board of supervisors also represents the election commission board.

“I just would like to move ahead and get with the board (of elections in Bolivar County) and see what can be done,” Morton said.

Now that Lucas knows the polling location in Mound Bayou will be changed and voting can be done more safely, she’s turned her attention to making sure as many people as possible get out to vote.

“I am just elated,” she said. “We won’t have to endure that.”

Bobby Harrison and Alex Rozier contributed to this report.

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

The Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, June 30, 2020.

One legislative vacancy remains to be filled after four runoff special elections for House and Senate seats were completed Tuesday.

Six legislative vacancies, caused by resignations, have occurred this year — an unusually high number in the first year of a new four-year term, and only one year after all 174 legislative posts were up for election.

In Tuesday’s runoff election:

• Senate District 15: Businessman Bart Williamson defeated Mississippi State University professor Joyce Meek Yates in a seat left open by the resignation of Gary Jackson. The district consists of portions of Choctaw, Oktibbeha and Webster counties.
• Senate District 30: Attorney Jason Barrett defeated banker Bill Sones in a district that consists of portions of four counties but is centered around Brookhaven in southwest Mississippi. Barrett will replace Sally Doty, who resigned from the seat after being appointed as executive director of the Public Utilities staff by Gov. Tate Reeves. Besides Lincoln County, the district also consists of portions of Copiah, Lawrence, and Walthall counties.
• House District 37: Former Lowndes County School Superintendent Lynn Wright upended business owner David Chism, who is the cousin of Gary Chism, who held the post until his resignation earlier this year. The district consist of portions of Clay, Oktibbeha and Lowndes counties.
• House District 66: De’Keither Stamps, a member of the Jackson City Council, upended former school teacher Robert C. “Bob” Lee Jr. in the Hinds County district. Stamps will replace Jarvis Dortch, who stepped down to become director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Earlier this year Sanderson Farms executive Robin Robinson won a special election in District 88 to replace Ramona Blackledge. The district consists of portions of Jones and Jasper counties.

On Nov. 3, Matthew Conely, David Wayne Morgan and Joseph “Bubba” Tubb will be on the ballot for the District 87 post in Forrest and Lamar counties. That post became vacant when Billy Andrews stepped down early this summer.

If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the special election, a runoff will be held between the top two vote-getters.

In January, when the new session begins, the two presiding officers, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in the Senate, will have to juggle committee assignments because of the resignations and election of new members. The plum committee post will be Senate Judiciary A, left vacant by Doty’s resignation.

Candidates run without party labels in legislative special elections. But thus far it is not likely that the results will change the partisan makeup of the House and the Senate. All of the resignations were Republican, with the exception of Dortch. Stamps is expected to serve as a Democrat, replacing Dortch. And the other winning candidates this week are expected to serve as Republicans.

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Mike Espy said incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is disrespecting Mississippians by offering few open-to-the-public appearances.

Democratic challenger Mike Espy said incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is hiding from and disrespecting Mississippians by refusing to debate him and running a low-profile campaign with few open-to-the-public appearances.

“She’s doing the same thing the rest of the country often does — ignoring Mississippi,” Espy said in a Wednesday press conference before he hits the campaign trail for the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election. “… She’s running a lazy campaign, taking voters for granted. You don’t do that in Mississippi.”

Hyde-Smith’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. On social media, she posted: “You have a choice this election, so I encourage you to dig into both of our records…” with a link to one of her campaign ads.

Espy said: “If you can’t come stand before the public or answer questions from the media, then you don’t deserve this seat … Unlike Sen. Hyde-Smith, when you call on me I will respond. When you ask me a question, I will answer it. I’m not going to run away from you … Cindy Hyde-Smith has not held one town-hall meeting in two years.”

READ MORE: “The last thing I’m worried about”: Sen. Hyde-Smith walks back willingness to debate Espy.

Espy said health care is the most important issue of the race, and he said Hyde-Smith should stand before voters and answer questions about her platform. He said she supports repeal of the federal Affordable Care Act “with no plan to replace it in the middle of a pandemic.” Espy also said Hyde-Smith “voted five times to undermine protections for pre-existing conditions.”

Hyde-Smith, in a rematch with Espy for a seat that most prognosticators consider safely Republican in one of the reddest states in the country, has done little public campaigning and has declined invitations to debate. The Mississippi race is one of few Senate contests across the country where candidates are not debating.

READ MORE: Most U.S. senators running in 2020 have agreed to debate. Cindy Hyde-Smith has not.

Espy criticized Hyde-Smith for comments she made recently on how it was good for voters that Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris were debating to give the public their opinions and to show how they respond under pressure.

Many politicos have surmised that Hyde-Smith — prone to gaffes on the public campaign trail — believes she has a substantial lead in the race, can ride President Donald Trump’s coattails with Mississippi voters, and is otherwise laying low and trying not to give Espy’s campaign any platform.

Espy has accepted two debate requests, from WJTV and from WLBT, and on Wednesday said he is still willing to debate in the final weeks of the campaign.

Hyde-Smith had recently indicated she would like to debate Espy, if her schedule would allow it. But in comments to WJTV last week, Hyde-Smith said: “We have 27 days left. The last thing I’m worried about is a debate. With such stark differences, why would so much emphasis be put on a debate? … I don’t think a lot of minds would be changed.”

On Wednesday, Espy said: “That’s why you debate someone, if there are stark differences.”

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