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When Mississippians go to the polls Tuesday, they will have the opportunity to do something they have never done on their own — remove a Jim Crow-era provision from the state’s 1890 Constitution designed to prevent African Americans from holding office.

Language in the Constitution mandates candidates running for the eight statewide offices must garner a majority of the vote and win the most votes in a majority of the 122 House districts. Under the constitutional provisions, if no candidate is able to do both, the election is thrown to the House to decide between the top two vote-getters.

Other Jim Crow provisions of the 1890 Constitution, such as the poll tax, literacy test and separate but equal school districts were found unconstitutional by federal courts or banned by federal law, but were not removed from the Constitution by Mississippi voters until years later.

In regards to the elections being thrown into the House, often called Mississippi’s version of the electoral college, a lawsuit was filed in 2019 challenging the constitutionality of the process. In response to the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi indicated that if the state did not remove the provision he might be forced to do so. Mississippians will have an opportunity Tuesday to act before possibly being forced to by a federal judge.

No other state has provisions that would prevent the person garnering the majority of the vote from being seated. If voters approve the change to the Constitution, the state will still be outside of the mainstream in terms of electing candidates. Most states – 46 – require a candidate for statewide office to win only a plurality of the vote. The provision Mississippians are voting on would mandate a runoff among the top two vote-getters if no candidate garners a majority of the vote.

The 2019 lawsuit alleged the process of throwing the elections into the House dilutes Black voter strength. Black Mississippians are more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, but because House districts are drawn to maximize the number of Republicans serving in the House, it is difficult for Democratic candidates to win the most votes in a majority of the House districts, the lawsuit claimed.

The language was placed in the Constitution in 1890 at a time when African Americans were a majority in the state. The lawsuit cited a volume of the Mississippi Historical Society as saying the Constitution was written in 1890 in a manner to ensure the white minority controlled the House of Representatives and was “the legal basis and bulwark of the design of white supremacy in a state with an overwhelming and growing negro majority.”

In the 1990s,  three races were thrown into the House. In two elections for lieutenant governor, the losing candidate — Brad Dye in 1991 and Eddie Briggs in 1995 — asked the House to select the candidate who won the most votes. In 1999, Republican Mike Parker, who lost the popular vote, unsuccessfully took the election to the House where Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, who garnered the most votes, was elected by the representatives.

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Republican political strategists, anxious in 2018 that Democrat Mike Espy would defeat Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a special election runoff for the Senate, recommended that President Donald Trump fly to Mississippi to campaign for the appointed senator.

Those election eve rallies — in Tupelo and Biloxi, two of the state’s critical GOP strongholds — ultimately shored up Hyde-Smith’s 7.5-point victory over Espy, the former congressman and U.S. secretary of agriculture.

Two years later, as Hyde-Smith again faces Espy in a Senate election for the full six-year term, the senator has received nothing more than a single supportive tweet from the president.

If Hyde-Smith wins on Tuesday night, it won’t be because she received help from a president or other national Republicans. It won’t be because she ran a methodical campaign, or because she articulated a message of change for Mississippians who have long suffered from the many problems that plague the state. She’d win because a majority of Mississippians are Republican in this most-polarized election.

Hyde-Smith’s 2020 campaign strategy has been one of hope — hope that her reliance on Trump’s popularity in Mississippi and red-meat Republican talking points will guide her to victory. She avoided tough questions on the campaign trail, and she spoke little about critical issues facing Mississippians. She refused to debate her opponent, and she received meager financial support.

This election’s penultimate question, begged through inaction by Hyde-Smith and GOP leaders: Can a Republican in a reliably red state still win an election without much campaigning, even against a formidable Democratic challenger?

Financial reports from the final days of the 2018 and 2020 elections perhaps best illustrate how little Hyde-Smith has done on the campaign trail this year.

Three weeks from the 2018 runoff, Hyde-Smith’s campaign had spent $3.4 million. Three weeks from the 2020 general election, Hyde-Smith’s campaign had spent just $2.6 million. That’s a decrease of 24%.

Three weeks from the 2018 runoff, Espy’s campaign had spent $2.2 million. Three weeks from the 2020 general election, Espy’s campaign had spent $6.4 million. That’s an increase of 190%. 

Gov. Phil Bryant, the historically popular Republican who appointed Hyde-Smith to the Senate, stumped hard for her in 2018 and helped raise in-state money through the Mississippi Republican Party apparatus.

This year, Gov. Tate Reeves, significantly less popular than Bryant, did virtually no campaigning or fundraising for Hyde-Smith. Several Republican operatives privately questioned the timing of Reeves — eight days from Election Day — hosting a $10,000-per-photo fundraiser for the state Republican Party as Hyde-Smith struggled to raise cash in the final stretch.

Two years ago, Hyde-Smith received millions in support from super PACs and independent groups, which flowed cash into Mississippi to ensure Hyde-Smith and Republicans retained their seat in the U.S. Senate.

This year, Hyde-Smith has none of that outside support.

“I just really figured there’s no reason to even set up a Super PAC this time, you know. She should be fine,” Henry Barbour, the national Republican strategist who helped steer millions to support Hyde-Smith in 2018, told Mississippi Today last week.

In 2018, Hyde-Smith benefitted from what former Republican Party Chairman Lucien Smith heralded as “the largest data-driven, get-out-the-vote effort we’ve ever had in Mississippi.” At least 15 full-time staffers knocked doors and made calls across the state for the senator, and during the three-week runoff, national Republican groups at least doubled that number of canvassers.

This year, Hyde-Smith’s campaign had a goal of hiring “six or seven” full-time field staffers, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager Justin Brasell said earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith’s Democratic opponent Espy has run one of the most expensive and robust campaigns in the state’s history.

Espy raised and spent just shy of $10 million, which is about $7 million more than Hyde-Smith this year. That total crushes previous records for any Democrat in Mississippi’s history, and, for reference, is almost twice what Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood raised and spent in his 2019 bid for governor.

His campaign staff, hoping to close the partisan gaps that have haunted modern Democrats since the early 2000s, deliberately dropped cash to target specific voters in specific parts of the state.

If Republican operatives were correct about their largest-ever field game for Hyde-Smith in 2018, Mississippi Democrats, led by strategist Jared Turner, easily topped it in 2020, building the largest data-driven, get-out-the-vote effort in the state’s history — for either side of the aisle.

The Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, working on Espy’s behalf, placed paid canvassers in 52 of the state’s 82 counties for the final month of the race. For weeks, they’ve knocked doors, phone banked and aired television, radio and online advertisements.

Race has been central to this campaign during a national reckoning on racism in politics. Espy, a Black man who has already broken racial barriers in politics, faces a white incumbent who has continued to make questionable comments about race. As millions of Americans protested racial inequality and Trump continued to galvanize Black voters, Espy made race a central theme of his messaging this year. As a result, Democratic operatives believe more Black Mississippians will vote in 2020 than any year in the state’s history, including when President Barack Obama was on the ballot.

Espy maintains he needs the support of 22% of white Mississippi voters, so he targeted white women in suburban counties during the final stretch. He also spent many of his campaign’s final hours speaking to young voters. Across the nation, young voters, who always skew more Democratic, have voted early in record numbers.

To win, Espy needs record turnout, and he needs that broad coalition of support. 

Democrats say that regardless of outcome, Espy’s 2020 candidacy helped them build an infrastructure to succeed in future elections and showed them that the state’s political needle is moving toward center. They say that even a closer Espy loss than 2018 helps them make a clearer case to national Democrats for continued investment in the state.

While many Republican strategists are comfortable in 2020 banking on Mississippi voters being too conservative to elect a Democrat, some are suggesting that Hyde-Smith’s 2020 strategy has done long-term damage to the party.

“Campaigns and outcomes matter, but so do margins,” a veteran Mississippi Republican operative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, told Mississippi Today. “These things do have consequences. Cindy Hyde-Smith may get elected, but it’s very possible she’ll get elected with the lowest share of any Republican Senate candidate in the state’s modern history. She’ll be seen as weak and vulnerable in Washington. Her choice not to care at all about this race definitely hurts Republicans in Mississippi in the long run.”

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Mississippi voters on Tuesday will adopt or reject the “In God We Trust” state flag.

Mississippi voters on Tuesday will adopt or reject the “In God We Trust” state flag, a design with a magnolia blossom instead of the Confederate battle emblem that flew over the state for the last 126 years.

An appointed commission reviewed thousands of public submissions for flag designs over the summer and chose the new design with a magnolia and stars — a combination of multiple submissions.

The Legislature in June, after decades of debate and under mounting pressure from religious, business, sports and community leaders, removed the 1894 flag with its divisive Confederate emblem. It left ratification of a replacement up to voters.

READ MORE: Mississippi furls state flag with Confederate emblem after 126 years.

The new design before voters has a magnolia — the official state tree and flower — blossom on a blue background surrounded by stars with gold and red vertical stripes on the ends. It has one prominent star made of diamonds, representing Native Americans who first inhabited the area, and a ring of smaller stars denoting Mississippi becoming the 20th state in 1817.

The Legislature, when it voted to remove the old flag, stipulated in law that whatever design is put before voters, it must have the words “In God We Trust” on it, and that it could not have the Confederate emblem.

If a majority of voters do not approve the new flag on Tuesday, the redesign commission will go back to the drawing board and pick another design to put before voters next year.

One group, Let Mississippi Vote, hopes to overturn the Legislature’s removal of the old flag. It plans to mount a petition drive to place on the ballot — as early as 2022 — an initiative that would allow voters to restore the 1894 flag, or select other options including the one on the ballot Tuesday. The group said it plans to have people at polls on Tuesday collecting names and information for its drive.

MORE ELECTION COVERAGE: Check out Mississippi Today’s Voter Guide for more information about everything that’s on the Nov. 3 ballot. 

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As of Sunday, a record of more than 231,000 Mississippians had voted absentee — about 19% of the more than 1.2 million total people who voted in the 2016 election.

By comparison, in 2016, a little over 101,000 absentee votes were counted, about 8% of the total turnout that year. Although some of this year’s absentees are likely to be rejected, the number received marks a 128% increase over 2016’s absentee count.

Secretary of State Michael Watson on Monday reported that as of Sunday 248,335 absentee ballots had been requested, 247,650 had been sent out and 231,031 had been returned to circuit clerk’s offices.

Saturday was the final day to vote absentee in person, but mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received within five business days will still be counted.

Circuit clerks statewide have reported heavy absentee voting and most expect a heavy in-person turnout on Tuesday. Some, including more populous counties, have seen astounding increases in absentee voting this year. For instance, Hinds County in 2016 counted 5,255 absentee votes. As of Sunday for this election, the county had received 16,917 absentee votes.

Watson said last week that more than 113,000 new voters had registered in Mississippi this election cycle.

Mississippi’s early voting laws are among the most restrictive in the nation, and it’s the only state not to provide all citizens an option to vote early rather than go to crowded precincts on Election Day during the pandemic. Only people who are going to be away from their home area on Election Day, those 65 and older, and people with disabilities are allowed to vote absentee, either in person or by mail.

A federal lawsuit filed against the Mississippi secretary of state this year and settled last week resulted in two new rules for this election.

Voters must receive correspondence from election officials about any problems with the signature verification on their absentee ballots, and the voter will have 10 days to correct it.

Also, election officials must provide curbside voting opportunities on Election Day for people experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or who have been exposed to the coronavirus.

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Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Voters wait their turn to cast absentee ballots on Oct. 31, the last day to do so in person, at the Hinds County Courthouse in Jackson.

Mississippians are expected to vote in record numbers on Tuesday, and already have set absentee voting records for this election, typically a bellwether for in-person turnout.

Here are some tips and rules for Mississippi voters as they prepare to vote:

• Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. statewide. State law says anyone in line by 7 p.m. must be allowed to vote even if polls are closing.

• To make sure you know where to vote, go to the secretary of state’s Polling Place Locator.

• Secretary of State Michael Watson said people wanting to avoid long lines, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, should avoid going to the polls in the early morning, during lunch, or after 5 p.m.

• Mississippi voters are not under a mask mandate, although they are urged to wear them and most precincts will have them available for voters. Both Watson and Gov. Tate Reeves say such a mandate would be unconstitutional infringement on voting rights, although the federal district court that covers Mississippi has ruled it would not be unconstitutional.

• You may be asked by poll managers to step six feet back and briefly pull down your mask so that your identity can be verified.

READ MORE: Frequently asked questions about voting from our readers.

• Poll workers will be wearing masks, and additional workers have been added at many precincts to ensure social distancing guidelines and to ensure the polls and the voting machines are continuously sanitized.

• Voters must have a government-issued photo identification. But those without an ID are allowed to vote, and they will have five days to go to their county circuit clerk’s office to provide proof of their identification. People needing to vote curbside because they believe they might have COVID-19 or because of other issues should call their local circuit clerk before voting. Telephone numbers for circuit clerks can be found on the secretary of state’s web page.

• People who for whatever reason are not on the poll books can request to vote by affidavit and they also will have five days to resolve issues surrounding why they were not on the poll books.

• A new rule issued by Watson says curbside voting must be available for anyone showing symptoms of COVID-19, including coughing, headaches, fever, sore throat and loss of taste or smell.

• Another new rule says election officials must notify a voter about problems with their signature on an absentee ballot, and must give the voter a chance to fix the problem. The voters must be offered an “absentee cure form” by email, mail or fax within one business day, and the voter has 10 days to correct the problem.

• People with questions about where they vote can visit the polling place locator or Y’all Vote on the secretary of state’s web page. The office also has a telephone line at 1-800-829-6786 to answer elections-related questions. County circuit clerks also can answer questions about the election.

• Rules prevent people from wearing campaign-related clothes or caps into the polling place. And people campaigning for a person or issue on the ballot must remain 150 feet from the polling place. Watson said this rule applies only to signage or clothing pertaining to “anything that’s on the ballot,” but would not prohibit other messaging not directly up for a vote. So any candidate-specific gear like MAGA or Biden hats are prohibited, but generic “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts are permitted.

ELECTION 2020: Mississippi Today Voter’s Guide

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Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Xavier Showers, 8, joins classmates via Zoom for math class Wednesday morning at the Mississippi Children’s Museum.

A total of 24 day cares, nonprofits, churches and other organizations from across the state received a total of $5.4 million in funding this fall to care for and educate children under 5-years-old during the pandemic. 

Gov. Tate Reeves issued the first round of allocations from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund in recent weeks. The purpose of the money, a part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, is to enable governors to decide how best to meet the needs of students, schools and other education-related organizations impacted by COVID-19. Mississippi received a total of $34.6 million. 

The largest amount in the first allotment of funding was to Waterford.org, a Utah-based education nonprofit that has been piloting a virtual program for pre-kindergartners in Mississippi for several years. The group received nearly $2 million to expand its existing program to nearly 2,500 preschool-aged children.

The next largest awards were to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Gulf Coast for around $870,000, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi for about $436,000.

Waterford.org has been operating in collaboration with partners across the state, including the Mississippi Head Start Association, to offer a supplement to pre-kindergarten, said LaTasha Hadley, vice president of state education partnerships. Since 2016, the program has been offered to 3,639 low-income children in areas of the state where literacy scores were low.

The GEER funding has made it possible to serve additional students who were on the waiting list to participate in the existing program, explained Hadley. All Mississippi families with 4-year-olds are eligible to enroll regardless of income, and the deadline for application is Nov. 1. 

“Mississippi is taking the lead in not only investing in innovative early education efforts during the pandemic, but also in recognizing the need for wide educational partnerships such as the Waterford Upstart Pandemic Recovery Path program,” said Reeves in a press release. “By providing a strong foundation through early education, the State of Mississippi and its partners are working together to help ensure all children in our state are afforded the ability to get the same start to academic, life and career success.”

Waterford.org’s program will serve 2,500 preschool-aged children from Nov. 1 of this year to Feb. 5, 2021. The program will provide a laptop or internet access to any family that needs it, and children will receive an adjusted version of Waterford’s flagship at-home kindergarten readiness program, Waterford Upstart. 

Students will use the program’s reading software for 20 minutes a day, five days a week. Families will also be connected with a program coach that will help monitor the child’s progress and provide other guidance. 

For parent Kyesha Clark of Lena, the program has been helpful to her 4-year-old who also attends pre-kindergarten in Flowood.

“He really likes it. He’s learning how to use a computer, how to use a mouse, follow directions, things like that,” Clark, a former teacher, said. 

She noticed an improvement in his recognition of letters and in spelling. 

“I gave him tracing paper with his name on it to start learning how to write his name, and he knew more letters than I thought he did,” she said. “I think it’s really from him doing Waterford every day.” 

Several other early childhood organizations received GEER funding, including Funtime Afterschool and Preschool of Clinton, New Horizon Childcare Center in Jackson and Save the Children, a statewide organization that provides services for children under 5-years -old.

The Children’s Museum of Jackson, which has long offered educational programming for students in the metro area, also received funding to serve students in the Jackson Public School District, which is currently operating entirely virtually. 

From the beginning, the staff at the museum knew they wanted to be a resource for children during the pandemic, said President Susan Garrard. 

Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Kaylen Wade, 8, uses a laptop and tablet to participate in class via Zoom while at the Mississippi Children’s Museum.

After talking through several different iterations of what the museum’s role would be in 2020, they ultimately landed on creating a tuition-based program offering tutoring, after-school and day camp services for children in the metro area. The program was made by possible by generous private donations. 

“We couldn’t just not use this great space with great WiFi and great staff and great educators. We knew we needed to be part of that (solution) and be a resource,” said Garrard. “We had already created this framework and had decided we wanted to be of service to children for their virtual learning.”

And now, thanks to around $165,000 in GEER funds, that programming is available to 40 pre-kindergarten through sixth grade students in the Jackson Public School District free of charge. The group represents 12 different schools, and the funding will last for these students for 16 weeks.

The impact of the pandemic on students in the capital city is huge. The all-virtual mode of school – in a high-poverty district where 25% of students currently do not have access to a device – was a major and challenging transition.

Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Twin brothers Armani and Amari Johnson, both 9, listens as academic tutor Marilyn Terrell, explains the math lessons for the boys after a glitch with the Zoom call. “Not to worry. Either way, we will get it done,” said Terrell.

Several weeks into the programming, at the end of the first nine weeks of school, Director of Museum Experiences Patti Reiss and other staff members were celebrating a win for one of the museum’s students.

“We learned today that one of the third graders is on the honor roll for the very first time,” said a beaming Reiss, who is also a certified teacher. 

“We have (students from) 12 different JPS schools here,” Reiss said. “Usually in a public school district, who you go to school with is very much decided by geography.”

She said she’s seen students from different schools, like Isabel and Pecan Park Elementary Schools, discuss and help one another with schoolwork.

“This also puts everybody on an even playing field. You’ve got students in academic performing arts, magnet, traditional schools, and they’re all getting the same support and the same resources,” Monique Ealey, director of education and programs at the museum. 

Ealey said the museum was able to purchase devices for students who did not have one.

Reiss and Ealey are very aware that many of their students’ needs stretch beyond the classroom. 

“We have children who’ve experienced losses in their family, who may be displaced (due to COVID-19),” Ealey said.

In addition to the academic offerings the museum provides – including three certified teachers and two retired teachers and a host of staff members and volunteers — their past work with community partners such as the Center for Advancement of Youth means they can connect children with needed resources, she said.

“Having these GEER funds puts us in a position to not just support them academically, because right now in the middle of a pandemic, it’s much greater than that,” she said.

Students in the museum’s Launch into Learning program have the option of attending full-day ( 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m) or part-day and after-school options. The children are grouped into age appropriate, socially distanced classrooms and begin each day with their virtual work, assisted by their museum teacher. 

The students also received two meals and two snacks a day — a major benefit for an area where food security is often a challenge. 

Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Children amuse themselves playing with the “Toppling Tortoise” and learn how different animals burrow underground.

Older children continue virtual work after lunch and the younger children engage in museum-directed instruction, including Spanish, health, nutrition, and literacy, among other subjects.

The remainder of the day is free play in the museum’s 20,000 square feet of indoor exhibits and 15,000 square feet of outdoor exhibits.

Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Jayden Brooks, 8, listens to his math teacher via Zoom.

Karen Cotton, the mother of 8-year-old Jayden Brooks and 11-year-old Adrian Brooks, said she’s grateful for the program. Adrian started the program using GEER funds in October, and Cotton said she’s noticed a difference in her son.

The ability to socialize and have more reliable internet access has been good for him, but virtual school remains a struggle.

“I can see a happier side of him — that’s a plus,” she said. “But school wise … we’re still working on it.” 

Applicants for GEER funding that were not funded in the first round will have an opportunity to revise the application and re-submit in a third round taking place no later than Jan. 31 of next year, said Parker Briden, a spokesperson for Reeves’ office.  

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Democrat Mike Espy will benefit from record turnout among Black voters next week, according to several of the state’s top Democratic insiders. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

To have a shot at defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Nov. 3, Democratic challenger Mike Espy needs record turnout from Mississippi’s Black voters.

He will get it, according to several of the state’s top Democratic insiders who are working on the ground in the 2020 cycle.

“I’ve looked closely at the data, and I think Black turnout in Mississippi will be higher than it was when we had President Obama on the ballot,” said Charles Taylor, a political data consultant who is managing the canvassing effort for the Mississippi Democratic coordinated campaign this year.

“Black voters have struggled in this country and in this state for a very long time. Any opportunity or chance we get to increase our collective power, we’re going to do everything we can to do so,” Taylor continued. “Trump is the most divisive president and the worst president to people of color that we’ve had in modern history, and you’ve got a chance to help get him out of the White House. And you’ve got Espy at the top of the Mississippi ticket. There’s organic excitement that I haven’t seen in Mississippi in a long time.”

Black Mississippians make up about 37% of the state’s voting-age population and are the most critical voting bloc for Espy this year as he seeks to become the state’s first Black senator elected by popular vote. No African American has won a statewide election in the state’s history.

Espy — who was the first African American elected to Congress since Reconstruction and has made race a central theme of his 2020 campaign — maintains that he will win if, among other things, Black voters make up at least 35.5% of the total electorate.

The highest share of Black voters in the state’s modern history was 2012, when they made up 36% of the electorate. That was the year President Barack Obama was running for re-election. The record voter turnout in 2020, projected by the political insiders, would likely surpass that mark and exceed Espy’s target.

This year, Obama’s former vice president Joe Biden — popular with Black Mississippi voters — is at the top of the ticket running against Trump, along with running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, who would be the nation’s first Black vice president.

Not every Black Mississippian who votes next week will check the box next to Espy’s name, but it’ll be close.

In the 2018 runoff for U.S. Senate, Espy received 95% of the African American vote, which made up about 32.5% of the total electorate. Top-of-ticket Democratic candidates in recent Mississippi elections have received from 88% to 95% of the Black vote, depending on the candidate.

Dating back to 2008, Black Mississippi voters have made up 30% to 36% of the overall turnout, based on exit polls and commercial voter files, according to Chism Strategies, a Mississippi-based political consulting firm. The low mark was 30% in 2014, and the high mark was 36% in 2012.

Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Irish Simmons and her brother Tyrone Mayes fill out their ballots at the Hinds County Courthouse in late October.

Voter turnout during the COVID-19 pandemic remains uncharted and unknown, but Mississippi continues adding to its record pace with absentee ballots, which are typically an indicator of in-person turnout. As of Tuesday, more than 190,000 absentee ballots had been requested, compared to less than 111,000 requested in the entire 2016 election.

Though racial disparities have lessened during the pandemic as cases have surged in white, rural pockets across the country, Black Mississippians are still disproportionately diagnosed with and killed by the coronavirus. Several advocates have expressed concern that maskless voters might deter Black voters concerned about spread, or worse, cause voters to risk contracting the coronavirus simply by exercising their right to vote.

Several have suggested that Mississippi’s Republican leaders choosing not to expand early voting options during the pandemic, letting a statewide mask mandate expire even as COVID-19 cases spike, and not requiring masks to be worn at polling places are examples of voter suppression.

“It is voter suppression, but it’s also dumb,” said Congressman Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s lone African American elected official in Washington who last week predicted “tremendous” Black voter turnout this year. “… Why would you risk your life just to vote, unless you felt that all precautions were being met? A simple precaution like a mask could be the encouragement necessary for a person to go and vote.”

READ MORE: “Practices aimed to suppress the vote”: Mississippi is the only state without early voting for all during pandemic.

But some politicos say any perceived effort by Republicans to suppress the vote by not expanding safe voting options during the pandemic may backfire.

Longtime Mississippi political strategist Pam Shaw, in a September interview with Mississippi Today, surmised that the pandemic could hurt Black voter turnout, particularly among older voters. But she’s recently seen trends that changed her mind.

“I have been pleasantly surprised over the last 30 days at the energy I am seeing and hearing in the Black community,” Shaw said. “… I think you’re going to have in terms of the Black community almost the turnout you had with Obama. Maybe not quite, but close. It’s a combination of Kamala (Harris), and the pandemic and just the energy, a combination of all those things.”

Shaw said she’s seeing and hearing about many older Black voters voting absentee and, “I think people are trying to do work-arounds with the virus.”

White Mississippians have driven recent COVID-19 case growth. Over the last two months, white cases have more than twice outpaced growth among Black Mississippians. But within that breakdown, Black women in particular have borne the brunt of the virus in Mississippi, accounting for nearly 30% of all cases where race is known, but only 20% of the population.

The irony is not lost on advocates that these are the very women who have driven the Democratic vote and voter rights campaigns for decades. 

“People who were deemed essential workers, on the frontlines, who live in multi-generational households … who have been impacted by the virus or know people who have, they lay this on Trump, lay it at his feet,” Shaw said. “I think Black women have in many ways embraced the narrative, ‘We can make a huge difference.’ Lots of Black women’s organizations, formal and informal networks, are saying, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t like what’s going on with kids, with schools, with conversations around pandemic unemployment.’”

While anti-Trump sentiments and excitement for Espy are evident among Black voters, operatives also point to political strategy as a reason to expect record turnout.

Espy this year has raised more than $9 million — by far the highest amount raised by a Democrat in the state’s history — and he has strategically targeted Black voters with television, radio and digital advertising and in-person outreach the past few weeks. A robust Democratic field strategy has placed paid canvassers in 52 counties since September, and many of them have been focused exclusively on reaching Black voters.

“The investment Espy’s made specifically to Black voters, I think he’s going to see a return on it,” Taylor said. “He put his money where his mouth was. This is the first time we’ve really seen people trying to turn out Black voters in this state in a presidential election cycle.

Taylor continued: “Win, lose or draw, whether there’s immediate satisfaction with the numbers on Tuesday or not, Espy’s campaigns in 2018 and in 2020 will leave a legacy and real infrastructure in Mississippi politics. His candidacy has helped to modernize the Democratic Party in Mississippi.”

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