Top strategists say Mississippi Democratic Party’s focus on white moderates can’t win elections. Will anything change?

A political identity crisis within the Mississippi Democratic Party is harming candidates up and down ticket. 

This is the second story in a three-part series about the Mississippi Democratic Party.

By Adam Ganucheau | May 28, 2020

Michael Rejebian will be the first one to tell you that the political strategy he carried out for Jim Hood, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2019, was a failure.

The campaign, which had been heralded as the Democratic Party’s best shot at the Governor’s Mansion in at least 16 years, focused most of its resources on targeting independent white voters, particularly in northeast Mississippi. Hood, a pro-life and gun-toting moderate, had won four attorney general races in large part by appealing to those voters.

But that focus drew criticism from Democratic voices several times during the 2019 campaign who said Hood should have been doing more to appeal to the party’s black, more progressive base. Late shifts in strategy occurred before the election, but those moves proved futile.

On Election Day, Hood lost all but two counties in northeast Mississippi, and he ran below targets in majority-black Democratic strongholds. He lost to Republican Tate Reeves by about five points.

“Continuing to focus on moderate white voters as a means to secure future electoral success assumes that there are enough moderate white voters to make that happen,” Rejebian, Hood’s campaign manager, told Mississippi Today this week. “And, more important, it discounts the potential future strength of African American voters.”

“The Democratic Party in Mississippi has reached its crossroad,” Rejebian said, “and now it’s going to have to make some tough decisions if it’s to even have a future.”

Bobby Moak, the current chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, disagrees. In an interview this week, Moak touted statistical gains made in 2019 with white moderate voters in suburban and university counties, and he said the party should double down on its efforts to attract white moderates.

“We see a lot of independents who want to come back,” Moak told Mississippi Today this week. “They’re coming back as you saw in the post-election analysis precinct polling in 2019. In different areas of the state, you saw 8-15 percent of voters come back to the party who had not historically been there in the last eight or 12 years.”

Moak continued: “We’ve brought back independents into the fold, we’ve brought back white voters. There’s one thing I believe in, and that’s that we will not stand if we stand alone. We have to have all of us: blacks and white and every mix of moderate or far left or far right Democrats. You have to have all of those folks coming in.” 

Rejebian and Moak’s clashing of ideals illustrates a political identity crisis within the Mississippi Democratic Party. 

As national Democrats struggle over whether certain progressive messages are too far left for average Democratic voters, Mississippi Democrats are struggling over whether certain conservative messages are too far right for average Democratic voters.

Political moderates like Moak have maintained the most power within the state party despite the fact that most moderate voters have left the party in recent years. Meanwhile, more progressive candidates and voters, who make up a majority of the party’s base, are on a limb. This unaddressed tension has left the party with no clear platform, and Democratic voters are receiving mixed messages from their candidates.

And every Mississippi Democrat, regardless of political bent, is losing the messaging battle versus the top-down Republican Party, which has implemented a clear platform and featured politicians who consistently fall in line with the values of their party leaders.

“What 2019 showed us is that if Mississippi voters are going to respond to a candidate who runs on conservative principles, they’ll vote Republican,” said Marvin King, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi. “At least in the short term, there’s not a path for Democrats in Mississippi to have success at the statewide level. So right now Democrats have to build for the future, and they should ask themselves how they want to lose.”

“Do you want to lose on Democratic principles,” King said, “or do you want to lose on something you’re not?”

Janis Triplett Patterson, a retired community college professor from Booneville, saw the effects of this identity crisis play out down ticket last year as she ran for the state House of Representatives.

Running as a first-time candidate, Patterson was offered no policy guidance from the state Democratic Party. Using other statewide campaigns as an unofficial guide, she centered her messaging around three positions that have become standard for Democrats in Mississippi: expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, fully funding public education, and devoting more funding to the state’s crumbling roads and bridges.

But when voters would press her on more sensitive political issues in private gatherings, she opened up about her support for tightening gun restrictions and “empowering a woman’s ability to make health care decisions with doctors as opposed to being criminalized for them.”

“I didn’t go out of my way to talk about those things publicly, but when people asked I was always going to tell the truth. I knew that could lose me some points, but so be it,” Patterson said. “I told people that I was a Democrat and that I was not going to play both sides. I stand for the things I believe in, and I think I did that my entire campaign. Maybe that wasn’t the best strategy to take, I don’t know. But I ran for the reasons I believed were right.”

As Patterson implemented that strategy, Hood targeted those same voters in her district with advertisements featuring his pro-gun and anti-choice viewpoints, hoping to swing more white moderate voters — particularly in northeast Mississippi —  his way in the governor’s race.

In the end, Hood’s strategy performed no better than Patterson’s. On Election Day, Hood received just one vote more than Patterson in that House district, where both candidates handily lost to their Republican opponents.

Voters in that district associated Hood’s and Patterson’s candidacies, even though the two candidates had policy diversions. But neither ultimately got enough votes to win because they were both Democrats.

“The party is in a terrible conundrum. Trying to find an ideological lodestar they can follow to victory is elusive,” said King. “They don’t have the numbers to win on the left, even though the left makes up the numerical majority of the party. But the moderates in Mississippi are conservative enough that they’re not going to vote Democratic.”

King continued: “It’s got to be disappointing if you’re a Mississippi voter who’s fairly progressive. You look at the top of the ticket and say, ‘I don’t like what I see here.’ They’re not enthusiastic about campaigning for or donating to candidates. I think the party would do better if it’d double down on the policy preferences of the majority of its voters, and they can build on that. But if your focus isn’t on generating passion among your base, then you don’t have a chance.”

A look at the Mississippi Democratic Party’s platform, adopted in 2016, would do little to help voters understand what the state party actually stands for.

Take health care, an issue that has stirred intense debate at the national Democratic Party level, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many high-profile progressives at the national level want “Medicare for All,” and others want to focus on expanding the Affordable Care Act to cover more Americans.

In its platform, the Mississippi Democratic Party doesn’t set itself apart from any other party or group on the issue of health care. Noticeably absent is specific mention of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a banner achievement of former President Barack Obama and a prominent campaign platform that most moderates and progressives in Mississippi share.

“We believe accessible, affordable, high-quality health care is part of the American promise, that Mississippians should have the security that comes with good health care, and that no one should go broke because he or she gets sick,” reads the complete health care platform of the Mississippi Democratic Party.

Several other key issues that Democrats champion during campaign season are ambiguous in the party platform. Issues like infrastructure, education and economics mention few, if any, specific policy positions. The issue that perhaps splits Mississippi Democrats the most — abortion — landed an open-ended, 14-word sentence in the 2016 platform: “We support a woman’s right to privacy in making her own health care decisions.”

Moak, the party chairman, said he does not believe the state party should take the lead on issues that candidates champion publicly; instead, he said elected officials should draw their own lines and expect party support.

“You have to realize you will not keep all the factions satisfied, okay, that’s just a fact of political life,” Moak said. “The party is not here to set policy positions. That’s for our elected officials whether at the city, county or state level. The issues they want to push is when the party needs to come in and say, ‘Let’s do this.’ You get behind them.”

Moak continued: “(Elected officials) are looking at things from a bigger view than we are, and they should have more information than the party has. And the party needs to back them up.”

But with so few prominent Democratic elected officials in recent years, the party has provided little policy or messaging backup, more than a dozen candidates and elected officials told Mississippi Today.

Jay Hughes, the white moderate who unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor in 2019, agrees. Like Rejebian, Hughes acknowledges that his 2019 strategy of appealing to white moderate voters cannot be a winning strategy moving forward.

“I couldn’t have been more of a moderate if I tried,” said Hughes, who lost the lieutenant governor’s race by about 20 points in 2019. “We need to admit that what we have isn’t working. It’s time to try something different and start from scratch.”

Editor’s note: Read part one of our three-part series about the Mississippi Democratic Party.

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The Senate has put the brakes – at least for the time being – on the House plan to allow Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to reconvene the Legislature at any time this year.

The House took up and passed the unprecedented proposal with no dissenting votes Wednesday to essentially keep the Legislature in session until Dec. 31 to deal with matters pertaining to the coronavirus, though they would only be in Jackson when jointly called by the two presiding officers – Gunn in the House and Hosemann in the Senate.

Senate President Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said the Senate would not take up the proposal this week.

“We are seriously considering it,” Kirby said. “I think there are some questions by some senators. They want to talk about it.”

The proposal would essentially strip Gov. Tate Reeves of what has traditionally been one of the most coveted powers of the state’s chief executive – the sole authority to call legislators back in special session once they adjourn the session for the year. Reeves expressed no opposition to the House plan when he was asked about it Wednesday. But on Thursday various senators and others said Reeves was in the Capitol expressing his opposition to the proposal to members of the Senate.

It would take a two-thirds majority to pass the proposal in the Senate. The governor would not have the ability to veto the joint resolution.

The 2020 session already is unprecedented because of the recess legislators took in March because of safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 session was scheduled to end in early May, but because of the recess is scheduled end July 12.

The Constitution limits the Legislature to 125-day sessions in the year after statewide elections – such as 2020 – and to 90 days in other years. But the Constitution also allows the Legislature to extend the session for 30 days at a time. Under the House resolution, the session would be continuously extended in 30-day increments for the rest of the year, though, they would only return to Jackson when called by Gunn and Hosemann – presumably to deal with coronavirus-related issues.

The issue is the latest power struggle between the Republican Reeves and and the Republican-controlled Legislature. Earlier this month they were engaged in a conflict when Reeves claimed he had sole authority to spend $1.25 billion in federal funds provided to the state to deal with coronavirus-related issues. The Legislature maintained it had spending authority under the state Constitution and eventually Reeves acquiesced.

Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Guntown, said Thursday he had discussed the issue of extending the session with Reeves. He said he also had spoken with members of Mississippi’s U.S. congressional delegation who told him there was a possibility the state could receive additional federal funds to deal with revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus economic slowdown. For that reason, McMahan said perhaps the Legislature should take measures to ensure its ability to reconvene to appropriate those funds.

“I would probably vote for it,” McMahan said.

Of maintaining the ability to return to Jackson, Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch, said, “In normal times, my opinion would be in no way we do this. Unfortunately, right now is not normal” and legislators need the ability to reconvene.

Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, the minority leader, said, “I think we are facing unprecedented times that call for unprecedented measures. We are facing a budget shortfall of between $100 million and $800 million. I think it is the right thing to do.”

But Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, said he most likely would oppose the measure.

“I think it is premature to extend the session for the remainder of the year,” Johnson said. “If we do our job now, it seems likely that we will not need to come back. The governor can always call a special session if the need arises.”

Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, said legislators are supposed to be part-time and have other business and family obligations that could be impacted if the House proposal passed. But she stressed members are willing to work.

House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, said the extension would not cost any additional funds. The Legislature receives $10,000 per session, regardless of length, and $1,500 per month out of session. The Legislature could still draw the $1,500 monthly benefit if the session was extended, but the members were not in Jackson. When legislators are meeting in session in Jackson, they also receive per diem.

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While the Mississippi Department of Employment Security has received more than 290,000 jobless claims as COVID-19 ravaged the nation’s economy, the number of people actually receiving unemployment benefits remains a mystery.

For weeks, the employment office has failed to respond to several public records requests and questions from Mississippi Today, including how many unemployed people it has paid during the pandemic. Officials at the agency say they’re too busy to comply with the Mississippi Public Records Act.

File photo

The state recorded an unemployment rate of 18.8 percent in the week ending May 2.

Federal data shows about 30,000 jobless Mississippians on average have filed new unemployment claims each week since the beginning of the economic crisis on March 15. As of May 23, about 200,000 people were still filing weekly claims, which is how they notify the department they’re still unemployed. But the agency has not said how many people they’ve officially approved and of those, how many have actually gotten their money.

Applicants face several hurdles in actually receiving the much needed funds, even when they meet all requirements for either traditional unemployment or the expanded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance passed by Congress.

Claimants must answer an exhaustive list of questions when applying and if they make one wrong entry — selecting “leave of absence” instead of “laid off,” for example — their claim may be flagged with an issue.

The employer may object to the claim, triggering an investigation in which an agency investigator would have to conduct further interviews with the employer to make a determination on the claim within 14 days. Employment Security officials told lawmakers during a hearing on May 7 that the agency had nearly 44,000 pending issues — a “startling number,” said Benefits Payment Chief Jeff Rhodes.

Claimants may also get locked out of their account, which requires them to get through clogged phone lines to an agency employee who can reset their password.

Even if applicants receive a notification saying they’re approved, and even if they can see a balance of funds in their account, they could wait weeks before receiving a direct deposit or their debit card, which allows them to access the money, in the mail.

The state recorded an unemployment rate of 18.8 percent in the week ending May 2 — the eighth highest in the country — up from 15.6 percent in April and 4.8 percent in March.

Historically, unemployment benefits have only reached a fraction, sometimes less than 10 percent of all jobless people looking for work in the state. This could be because they don’t qualify under federal or state guidelines, they exhausted the 26 weeks allotted or they simply didn’t bother to apply for the meager benefit of between $30 to $235 a week in Mississippi, the lowest in the nation. In light of the pandemic, Congress increased the weekly benefit by $600, making it more enticing to jobless workers. The bump is set to expire July 31.

Mississippi Today has three pending requests with the employment agency dating back to March 26, April 6 and April 13 for various records. State law requires agencies to provide records with seven business days of a request, 14 if they request an extension, unless the information is exempt.

“Due to MDES’s critical and heightened responsibilities during the COVID-19 Emergency, we will not be able to re-direct critical resources at this time due to the allocation of time needed to properly respond to certain items in your request,” Employment Security’s communication department said in an emailed response on April 22. “We ask for your patience and understanding.  Please be assured that when normal business operations return (or when the disaster declaration has ended), we will address all such requests.”

Mississippi State Health Department took a similar approach to dealing with requests from newspapers during the pandemic, including a request from Mississippi Today for more comprehensive demographic data on COVID-19 cases.

“As you are aware, MSDH is working around the clock to keep the citizens of Mississippi safe during this pandemic,” the department’s COVID-19 Incident Commander Jim Craig said in an April 15 letter to the news organization in response to requests from April 3 and April 6. “As a result of the necessary work that must be done to combat COVID-19, we do not have the capacity or resources to respond to your specific requests at this time.”

The Health Department recently agreed to release the names of long term care facilities where residents and staff tested positive for COVID-19 after a judge ruled in favor of Hattiesburg Publishing Inc., owner of the Pine Belt News, saying that the department must follow the Act and either supply the information or provide a specific reason the information is exempt under the law.

Mississippi Today also recently inquired about a work program that Employment Security runs, for which it received more than $700,000 from Mississippi Department of Human Services since October. The money came from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal welfare grant that has been the subject of a massive alleged embezzlement scheme over the last three years.

Unemployment officials said it would not answer any questions about how it runs the program, who it serves or their outcomes, instead referring all questions to Human Services. Human Services, which is still responding to public records requests, did provide its $1.3 million subgrant and scope of work with Employment Security to Mississippi Today.

[Don’t Miss: Unemployment in Mississippi weekly updates]

The post How many jobless Mississippians are receiving unemployment benefits? State employment office won’t say. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/ Report for America

Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson, walks out of the Capitol during a recess in the special session of the Legislature in Jackson Tuesday, August 28, 2018.

In a short discussion with no questions, members of the House voted unanimously to do something that’s never been done before in modern history: stay in session until the end of the calendar year.

The Legislature returned Tuesday to resume the work of the regular 2020 session, and on Wednesday the House passed a resolution that would allow lawmakers to remain in session until the end of the year if necessary, to pass any necessary bills surrounding the coronavirus.

The resolution would allow for the Legislature to extend the session by 30 days at a time and unless approved by both chambers, sine die, or the final day of the session, would be Dec. 31. This would apply specifically for bills of any sort related to the coronavirus; regular legislative deadlines would not apply. The Legislature would still have to pass a budget for the state and finish regular business according to those deadlines, which run into mid-July.

“This would allow us to do what we were elected to do, respond to this pandemic and the needs of our state,” said Rep. Jason White, R-West.

White said this would not add any additional costs to taxpayers. Lawmakers are paid $10,000 a year for the legislative session, and every month they are not in session they receive $1,500. They could still receive that $1,500 a month under the extension.

When asked about the resolution during a daily press conference Wednesday, the governor suggested it was a decision for lawmakers themselves.

“I think it is the prerogative of the Legislature,” Reeves said. “If they are going to work for free I think that is good.”

Before the pandemic, the legislative session was originally scheduled to adjourn for the year in April, but the coronavirus forced lawmakers to put the session on hold and reschedule the ending date for July 12.

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to extend the session by 30 days at a time, with a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate. Remaining in session indefinitely would allow Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to call the Legislature back to work whenever they see fit. If the session officially ends, then it would take a special session called by the governor to allow the Legislature to meet and take up bills.

The resolution still needs to pass in the Senate, which will likely take up the legislation on Thursday.

The post Anticipating the pandemic to persist, lawmakers plan to extend session to Dec. 31 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Congratulations to Lauchlin Fields on being named to the 2020 Emerging Leaders Council. Launched in 2017 by the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), the Emerging Leaders Council is an initiative to identify and support leaders who will advance the nonprofit news sector throughout the next decade. Lauchlin is one of 11 newsroom leaders from across the nation to be named as a 2020 member. 

“As Web & Engagement Editor, Lauchlin touches every aspect of our newsroom and reader experience,” said Mary Margaret White, Mississippi Today CEO. “She leads collaboration between departments and brings an eye for innovation and entrepreneurship to our brand. Lauchlin has been recognized throughout the industry for the ways she has broken down newsroom silos to grow audiences and align mission with the information needs of our readers. She is a true innovator and we are proud to call her one of our own.” 

This year’s Council includes leaders from publications both large and small, established and emerging, all united by skill, a spirit of innovation and a powerful commitment to nonprofit news. The cohort will collaborate and receive coaching on topics including major gifts, innovative audience-building strategies, building diverse and dynamic teams and leadership best practices.

“Building leadership capacity is fundamental to the growth and sustainability of nonprofit news and to the service individual outlets bring to their communities,” said Fran Scarlett, INN’s Chief Knowledge Officer.

Members of the 2020 cohort were nominated by their organization’s leadership and selected from an outstanding field of nominees to join INN’s third Emerging Leaders Council.

The post Web and Engagement Editor Lauchlin Fields named INN Emerging Leader appeared first on Mississippi Today.

‘I got absolutely no help’: Dysfunction within the Mississippi Democratic Party leads to historic 2019 loss

The first in our three-part series on the Mississippi Democratic Party illustrates how dysfunction and disorganization plagued the party’s candidates in 2019.

By Adam Ganucheau | May 27, 2020

About a month before the November 2019 election, Felix Gines, who was running for a state House of Representatives seat, gave up hope of receiving help from the Mississippi Democratic Party.

Gines, a Democrat in ruby red Harrison County facing an incumbent Republican, was under no illusion: It’d be a tough race, but it was a winnable one. 

As president of the Biloxi City Council, he’d earned the respect of Gulf Coast power brokers on both sides of the aisle. The House seat he sought represented a small district with neighborhood pockets of Democratic voters. He had a military background — a virtual prerequisite in the Air Force base town — and his time working for the Harrison County School District earned him the endorsements of the state’s most influential public education groups.

As Republicans have surged to a supermajority in both the House and Senate in recent years, Democrats desperately needed some legislative wins in 2019. But from the day he qualified for office until the election, Gines said, he never heard from a single leader of the state Democratic Party.

When the votes were tallied on election night, he’d lost by a little more than 100 votes.

“I had the most winnable race in the state, and for whatever reason it wasn’t treated that way by the state party,” Gines told Mississippi Today. “When good candidates in winnable districts aren’t getting support, what’s even the point? I got absolutely no help from the party. None. Zero.”

“Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what might’ve happened with just a little support,” he said.

Stories of such disappointment and dysfunction within the Mississippi Democratic Party are countless, and what happened on the night of Nov. 5, 2019, is the perfect illustration.

Democrats lost all eight statewide seats to Republicans for the first time in modern political history. They lost their majority control of the three-member Public Service Commission. They suffered a net loss in the Mississippi Legislature, undermining their ability to influence policy decisions made at the state level.

As Mississippi Democrats mourned their continued loss of political influence that night, Democrats in Southern states Louisiana and Kentucky celebrated big gubernatorial and legislative victories.

Beginning the evening following the 2019 general election, Mississippi Today interviewed more than six dozen prominent Democrats about what led to the 2019 collapse.

Those sources include current and former party leaders; current and former elected officials at the federal, state and local levels; major donors from both inside and outside the state; political operatives both from Mississippi and who were brought here to work for campaigns; engaged volunteers of the party; and average voters who follow politics closely.

None of those sources feel the party is on a positive trajectory, and nearly all of them criticized party leaders for their action during the 2019 election.

“I kept wondering, ‘Where’s my party? Where’s my party? Y’all need to help,’” Gines said. “I’m trying to carry our shared philosophy and move it forward, and I got nothing from the state party. Nothing.”

The Mississippi Democratic Party, once a powerful organization that controlled every sector of state government and politics, had no organized structure during the crucial 2019 statewide election.

Key staff positions at the party headquarters remained unfilled despite monthly financial support from the Democratic National Committee earmarked specifically for staffing. For the past four years, the party has had no executive director, who would typically be responsible for crafting political strategy and executing that vision with staff. The party has had no finance director, who would typically raise money to support that vision.

Bobby Moak, a former state representative who was elected chairman of the Democratic Party in 2016, has served as the party’s de facto strategy chief and fundraiser the past four years.

“In a nutshell, the role of the state party is supporting candidates and supporting our elected officials,” Moak told Mississippi Today. “I think we’ve done a good job. Do we have more work to do? Yes. But we’ve sure made a lot of progress in the last four years.” 

But over the past several weeks, about two dozen Democratic candidates and elected officials told Mississippi Today they received no support from the state party in 2019. The lack of staff structure contributed to that failed mission last year, several people who worked directly with party officials said.

“Any way you could define the role of the state Democratic Party, we just haven’t fulfilled it,” said Jacquie Amos, one of the party’s three paid staffers in 2019 who resigned in December after working seven years for the party. “As far as coordinating who was running, devising a plan for voter targeting, sharing that information with candidates, and being open and honest with the public about who we are as a party, none of it happened like it should have.”

Amos, data director Matt Nappe and digital director Matt Moore were the only three staffers paid throughout 2019. Each of them were paid less than $41,000 last year, according to finance reports. Their jobs were considered full-time, though not every staffer received health insurance from the party. No staffer received retirement benefits.

There were no all-staff meetings in 2019, according to several people close to the party. Instead Moak, between full-time work at his law practice, would talk with staffers individually about what needed to be done, which often led to miscommunication between staffers.

One of the duties of the state party is to coordinate Democratic activism efforts at the local level. Most of the state’s 82 counties have county party executive committees or dedicated volunteers tasked with registering, educating and regularly communicating with voters at the precinct levels.

Many of those county volunteers told Mississippi Today that coordination from the state party staff was virtually non-existent in 2019. When county volunteers would call the state party with questions, state staffers scrambled to determine who could best help. That confusion would often result in no response at all, several county party officials told Mississippi Today, leaving the local volunteers with no idea of how to conduct business.

“The main problem of the party is systemic, and it’s been worse the past four years than previously,” said David Rushing, a longtime party volunteer and chairman of the Sunflower County Democratic Party. “Nobody knows what anybody else is doing, so it’s impossible to get a coordinated effort together. Right now the leadership, for the most part, does not understand that the Democratic Party is a bottom-up organization, not a top-down.”

Another duty of the state party is to recruit a full slate of candidates in big election years. In January of 2019, the state party spent thousands of dollars on a text messaging campaign to recruit candidates for office. Mississippians across the state received text messages that asked if they’d consider running for legislative races.

Within a few hours of the texts going out, party officials began receiving calls from incumbent legislators asking why Democrats in their districts were being openly recruited to run for office against them. Moak and Nappe insisted that the program was targeted to keep those texts out of incumbents’ districts, but several high-profile Democratic incumbents told Mississippi Today that did not happen.

Even without a finance director, Moak raised more money in 2019 than any party leader had in recent years, bringing in about $400,000, according to finance reports. About $140,000 of that total came directly from the Democratic National Committee and was earmarked specifically for payroll. At least $40,000 of the total came from party fees that every Democratic elected official and candidate at the state level was required to pay.

“You know, (fundraising) has always been an issue,” Moak said. “I think our Republican friends have a much easier avenue to go down because they’ve got U.S. senators and governors. People who contribute to them also contribute to the party when asked. We’ve been getting a lot of financial support from the DNC, but we have to show folks who are willing to put some money into Mississippi that we have a viable program that can match up with any other state. I think we’re doing that.”

In 2018, the party moved into an office building just east of downtown Jackson — a point Moak and other Democrats regularly boast. But most days during the 2019 election year, Amos was the only staffer at the office. Moak spent most days in Bogue Chitto, where his home and law practice are. Nappe, the party’s data director, lives in Starkville. Moore, the party’s digital director, lives in Gulfport.

Just eight days before the November election, a party volunteer from Jackson visited the office to pick up yard signs. After no one answered his knocking at the door, he noticed a sign on the door that instructed him to call an office neighbor. The neighbor let the volunteer into the office, which was completely empty.

“You know, having an office is a good thing. It can serve as a hub, and it can be a place that volunteers are happy to visit,” Amos said. “But what good does it do if no one is there? If I wasn’t there, nobody was there. That was a big problem.”

One of the recurring line items on the party’s 2019 finance report is a monthly “utilities” charge to the J. Walter Michel Agency in Ridgeland. That company is owned by Walter Michel, a longtime Republican state senator, who currently serves as the property manager for the Mississippi Democratic Party’s building.

When asked why the Republican senator was paid $3,500 by the Mississippi Democratic Party in 2019, Moak replied: “I’m not the owner of the building. I don’t know the answer to that question.”

In early October 2019, about a month before Election Day, DNC Chairman Tom Perez had to settle an argument between Moak and top campaign officials for Jim Hood, the state’s top Democrat and nominee for governor, sources familiar with the conversation told Mississippi Today.

The DNC wanted to send $100,000 to the Mississippi Democratic Party for field operation — door knocking, leafleting, phone banking — in predominantly black counties. The Hood campaign, among the Democratic campaigns that would benefit from the operation, recommended two veteran political operatives who had experience in those counties.

The DNC transferred the money to the state Democratic Party, which was then expected to pay the consultants.

But there was a problem: Moak had other ideas of how to spend the money and held up the field operation. Moak’s proudest achievement as chairman the past four years, he says, is the development of a data program that features email, phone and text message lists of likely Democratic voters.

Moak often cites the program’s success in conversations with Democrats, and he says the program is why the Democratic National Committee continues to send checks.

“During the Mike Espy (U.S. Senate) race in 2018, we made 4.5 million telephone, direct mail or email contacts,” Moak said of the program. “We built a telephone system from 0 to 1.8 million. Email addresses, we don’t probably have as many as I’d like, but it’s somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000. Social media followers, we now have about the same as Republicans now. The DNC continues to support us for that data.”

But on the phone call, Perez told Moak the DNC money should be spent on the field operation and not on the state party’s data system. Moak privately fumed, sources said, but eventually sent $80,000 to the consultants.

A majority of the money the party has raised in the past four years has been spent on building this data system. But several seasoned Democratic political operatives told Mississippi Today that investment is not as effective in engaging and persuading voters as an investment in a true, person-to-person ground game.

For months, Democratic Party Executive Committee members have informed party leadership of complaints they’ve received across the state about the barrage of text messages and phone calls from the party during election years.

“I’m a data guy, a numbers guy. It’s how I make my living,” said Charles Taylor, a Jackson-based political consultant who works high profile statewide races. “I’ve been able to sit at the intersection of community organizing and political data management. What that perspective has taught me is that while data is real and necessary, it’s not sufficient. You need great data because it can point you in the right direction as to who to target, but it doesn’t speak to how to target them.”

Taylor continued: “What the data allows you to do is say who you want to touch, but the physical touch is the most important part. A text message does not move someone the same way that door knocking does, especially in Mississippi. Sending out a text message as a campaign strategy is like putting icing on a cake with no cake.”

Moak told Mississippi Today that the data system is just the first step in voter outreach strategy: If you identify where voters are and log that information, Moak said, you can later reach them in a ground game. But to date, no efforts have been made by the party to develop a ground game.

Several 2019 Democratic candidates and incumbents told Mississippi Today they were never offered a chance to utilize the data that the party had been collecting. This disconnect, the candidates and elected officials said, is affecting the outcomes of elections.

“When I ran for my legislative seat in 2015, I got limited and inaccurate data from the party,” said former state Rep. Jay Hughes, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2019. “So when I ran for lieutenant governor, I made the decision that the only way I could trust the numbers and contacts was to develop them from scratch with my own team. I didn’t even bother asking the party for help because I knew I wouldn’t get what I needed.”

And as candidates continue to be left without any support from the state party, morale continues to tank, several Democrats told Mississippi Today.

“I never got a thing from the state party. We’ve always been completely on our own,” said Debbie Dawkins, a four-term state senator who lost in the August 2019 Democratic primary and whose seat was flipped by Republicans in November. “There’s not a lot of hope for the party in my mind. Some say 2019 was rock bottom, but I think it can get worse.”

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today will publish part two of this series on Thursday morning. The piece will illustrate how a political identity crisis inside the Mississippi Democratic Party is harming candidates up and down the ticket.

The post ‘I got absolutely no help’: Dysfunction within the Mississippi Democratic Party leads to historic 2019 loss appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Once the coronavirus is brought through nursing home doors, it’s nearly impossible to scrub out before it has taken its toll on nursing homes.

VAIDEN — Relief was the first emotion that overcame Carla when she received a letter that an employee at her sister’s Mississippi nursing home tested positive for COVID-19.

Her initial response, although unusual given the circumstances, was justified. For weeks, she’d been in the dark regarding conditions inside her sister’s facility. The letter said that just a single case was identified and the employee immediately isolated outside of the facility. 

But for Carla, who asked for anonymity over concern that her sister could later be mistreated, that relief quickly gave way to fear — she knows how infections can race through facilities if not stopped quickly.

Just three days after she received the letter, that fear compounded when she received a call: Her 89-year-old sister had just tested positive, one of the first cases among residents at Carroll County’s only nursing home. A single case, considered an outbreak by the state health department, in late April prompted testing throughout the facility. Then the cases among residents and employees started to explode. Cases jumped from two in late April to 29 in less than a week. By May 9, just two weeks after the first positive test, cases grew to 45, where they have since stood. 

Coronavirus hits nursing homes like a bomb. Once the virus is brought through the doors, it’s nearly impossible to scrub out before it has taken its toll. The setting inside long-term care facilities is a perfect storm for virus spread: a close-quartered residential center with lots of shared space, waves of visitors and workers coming and going, and home to exclusively elderly and folks with illnesses that render their immune systems weakened and less capable of fighting off disease. 

Moreover, the care needed in these facilities demands close contact — just the kind that has been delayed in other health care settings and shunned by social distancing guidelines — like feeding, helping with meds and invasive devices, and assisting with general daily activities.

The case surge in Carroll County is not unique, though it is the largest outbreak linked to a single-facility county. Last week, Carla learned that her sister’s re-test was positive, an unwelcome sign to family and staff that the outbreak is still active and potentially spreading through the facility. Though her sister isn’t showing any traditional symptoms, she is getting weaker, Carla says. 

Carla’s only sister is one of the more than 16,000 Mississippians currently living in a long-term care facility. Carla hasn’t seen her sister in more than two months and is afraid the dementia, which rendered long-term care the only safe option, will take over completely by the time they can see each other again. They’ve always been close, even through their two-decade age difference, and the almost one-year stint at the home was already hard enough before the pandemic hit.

“I’m afraid after all this that when I go back, she’s not going to know who I am,” Carla said, holding back tears, adding she’s the only family member left that her sister remembers. “She doesn’t understand why I can’t come. They (staff) explain to her about the virus, but 15 minutes later, ‘Why isn’t my sister here, why isn’t my sister coming?’”

Vaiden Community Living Center, one of the 211 across the state but the sole nursing home in Carroll County, only houses 60 beds. 

Rachel Ethridge, spokesperson for Community Eldercare Services, which operates Carroll County’s nursing home and 18 others across the state, said most of the facility’s cases were among staff, 23 of whom have recovered and are returning to work. Though some residents are awaiting re-tests, at least 12 have recovered, Ethridge said Wednesday. Eight residents who tested positive for COVID-19 have since died, according to MSDH records. As is, at least three-quarters of the nursing home’s resident capacity has been diagnosed with the virus.

Statewide, more than one in 10 of all long-term care residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19. It’s unclear how many cases are still active, but nearly 20 percent of those who’ve contracted the disease in a facility — 332 — have died, four times the death rate of the state’s general population.

Though residents of long-term care — nursing homes and other residential facilities, such as assisted living centers, rehabs and homes for those with developmental disabilities — only comprise 13 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Mississippi, they’ve accounted for just over half of all deaths. In May alone, long-term care residents have driven the death toll, accounting for 65 percent of the month’s deaths so far and one-third of all deaths since the pandemic began. Nationally, long-term care cases account for about 11 percent of all cases, and one-third of deaths. 

Some nursing homes have fared worse than others. Though it’s unclear why, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said Friday new targeted testing was helping to identify unknown outbreaks, adding, “In places with really good infection control practices, a lot of times we’ll find zero cases.” 

Nursing home spread was slower to materialize in Mississippi than other states. The state only started counting outbreaks — considered to be one case among a resident or an employee due to the quick nature of spread in these settings — in early April, when 24 counties had long-term care outbreaks, totaling 28 cases and accounting for only 2 percent of all cases.

The state health department began releasing death information for long-term care in late April but has declined to name the facilities citing long-standing protocol and fear of stigmatizing residents and facilities. The Pine Belt News organization sued the state health department in May for failure to release the names through a public records request. Tuesday a judge ruled the health department must release the names or cite a legal reason not to. 

When death data was first released by the health department, long-term care facility residents accounted for 10 percent of cases and a third of all deaths. Now, cases among residents have only grown to 13 percent of all cases, but account for more than half of all deaths. Deaths among residents grew by 337 percent in less than a month, compared to the 116 percent growth in deaths among those outside of long-term care. 

But once the inflection point hit, it spread exponentially. Long-term care cases reached 470 by April 21 and nearly tripled in less than three weeks, ultimately surpassing 1,700 late-May, despite best-efforts to clean and hard choices to keep family out — the risk of spread too high. 

Most long-term care facilities have prohibited visitors since mid-March at the health department’s suggestion and the federal government’s mandate soon thereafter. But without visitation, many families say they’re in the dark about their family member’s condition. 

Dr. Keith Mansel, palliative care physician at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, specializes in helping families work out their end-of-life and health care goals, merging their medical and emotional needs. But this is like nothing his specialty has seen, he says, and he worries that the isolation felt by both family and patient can add to layered medical complications. 

“I’ve learned in palliative care that two things as we get older are so important – our function, our ability to get up and go, and socialization. That lack of socialization is a risk factor for our health and it’s actually a risk factor for life and death, we’re social beings,” he said, adding it’s not only that COVID-19 prevents family from visiting the facility — most residents too are stuck only eating in their rooms and banned from group activities, like card games and trips. 

Mansel continued: “And what’s really worrisome during isolation is what that’s doing to other comorbidities. I worry about people that may have mental health issues, mild cognitive dysfunction … I worry about all this, particularly in a state that has so many underlying health challenges. I think it will be years, but we will unfortunately learn about what the pandemic has done – not just directly from COVID, but indirect effects, too.”

He adds that face masks and social distancing requirements for health care workers, while vital, can add confusion for older folks and risk losing human connection so important to their well-being. 

“For centuries, doctors have sat at the bedside and leaned in, and touched when appropriate,” Mansel said. “I think that’s hard on patients when they (providers) can’t do that.”

Carla, who lives in Attala County, has only spoken to her sister at the Vaiden facility once in the more than two months she hasn’t been allowed to visit, when a nurse called her and handed over the phone, she said. She’s had trouble getting through to the facility and fears for her sister’s safety when she can’t check on her with her own eyes, she says.

“You don’t notify a family that an elderly person has tested positive for a deadly virus and then have no contact with them whatsoever,” she said, adding that communication did improve a few days after she got the news. “This is the blessing of the dementia – she can’t remember. As bad as dementia is, when they’re in a situation like this, it’s a blessing.” 

Ethridge, the spokesperson for the Carroll County facility, says it’s been all hands on deck for months, which makes it tough to make ends meet, she says, especially temporarily losing two dozen staff to the virus.

Eddie Johnson’s father, Sammie, also lives in the Vaiden nursing home, and echoes Carla’s concerns about communication. His father also tested positive late April but has since recovered. Sammie does not have access to a phone, so the lapse in communication, in addition to no visitation, has been even more concerning amid the outbreak, said Johnson, Sammie’s only living child.

“It’s not the nursing home’s fault. The state did what they thought was the right thing to do to stop the spread of this, but it cut our contact off,” Johnson said. “That has been the hardest part of this whole thing.”

Johnson lives outside of Memphis, so he’s used to not being able to visit often. But he’s also used to relying on nearby family’s frequent reports after visiting Sammie. Without those reports, he says it’s been hard, even knowing his father is physically safe. Still, Johnson worries about his father’s mental health.

“When you get that phone call that your dad has tested positive and he also has pneumonia on top of that — he’s 84, he has health problems, his wife and daughter died recently — is he going to survive this?” Johnson said. “That’s been the scary thought going through my mind this whole time, then you call several times a day – first thing in the morning, mid-day and before bed, sometimes they’re not able to answer at all. But, he’s always been a fighter … he’s got a lot to live for.”

Carroll, Kemper and Smith counties, scattered across the central belt of the state from the Delta to the Alabama line have recently shown quick case growth, initially driven by a single long-term care facility outbreak. Each of the three counties have just one nursing home — all three of which have active outbreaks with at least 28 COVID-19 cases each, though some have recovered and 21 have died. Together, they’ve had 103 resident cases among the three facilities, according to the health department, not counting staff cases and compounding enough cases to fill nearly half of all beds’ capacity among the facilities.

State health officer Thomas Dobbs announced universal testing in nursing homes mid-May, saying every resident and staff of every nursing home will be tested over two weeks, covering 27,000 Mississippians. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid also recommends all facilities conduct baseline tests to identify any cases and have weekly testing protocol thereafter if any cases are found. The state has said they will make testing kits available for any nursing home in need.

Dobbs said Tuesday he expects the nursing home testing to wrap up soon. So far, the testing has helped identify previously unknown cases, including asymptomatic residents and staff, he said, and increased total long-term care outbreaks to a peak 121. There are 211 nursing homes in the state.

Ethridge, of the Vaiden facility, said they recently completed facility-wide testing, but they’re bracing for the impact of re-testing after the first rounds decimated staff and diagnosed 45 residents. 

The pandemic is challenging aging health care models in a time when health care systems are bracing for an overall aging of the country. Models have shifted to prioritize aging in place, keeping folks out of facilities where possible. When it’s not possible, an emphasis on autonomy and independence pervades. 

Nationally and in Mississippi, population estimates project that the median age will shift from 37 in 2010 to 39 in 2040. In Mississippi, the 65 and older population will grow slightly faster than the national rate, from 13 percent in 2010 to 20 percent by 2030. While the jumps may not seem dramatic, they’re a significant step in a trend toward an older America, which will challenge both health care and industry to think differently, experts say.

Teresa Carithers, head of the Applied Gerontology department at the University of Mississippi, says the pandemic has spawned innovation and hopes it will set a new bar for aging care. The program she leads focuses on helping students look at the science of aging through a different lens — less so, how to simply care for old folks and more, how to age healthily throughout life and focus on quality of life. 

“If you look at the numbers (projections) we are faced with, we will never be able to build enough nursing homes or assisted living to accommodate the numbers, so we also have to look at innovation and that is for people to age in place,” she said. “We’re living longer, we want to incentivize health aging, and that can be done through many different areas. We need to start talking about healthy aging at early ages, not waiting until we’re 60 to start an exercise program — we’re looking at healthy aging from birth until the end of life.”

Carithers adds that for cases like Sammie’s in Vaiden, health care should shift to focusing on resilience, even under grim forecasts. 

“Deaths are something that we try to prevent, but when you have the most vulnerable population in a confined environment and the two groups that most likely would transmit, visitors and health care professionals who are trying desperately to care for those individuals, then we have to understand that some of the numbers are inevitable,” she said. “You really need to give even the elder that survives COVID hope for the rest of their aging year.”

Part of knowing how to shift aging care models and better care for those impacted is having precise data, says David Buys, assistant professor at Mississippi State University’s Extension program, who focuses on state-level population health and data. He’s been running daily statistics on COVID-19 case and death rates, and says long-term care offers an important example. 

Digging through the data from the state health department paired with federal statistics, Buys found surprising aspects once he broke out long-term care rates from the general population. Though African Americans contract and die from COVID-19 disproportionately, the death rate among white people is higher overall — meaning if a white person contracts the virus, they’re more likely to die from it. Once Buys pulled long-term care out of the equation, he realized that setting was driving the white death rate, noting white folks are more likely to reside in long-term care, too. 

“Given what we know about health disparities in Mississippi, I was surprised by that, so I started to consider what might be driving those differences. It was just about the time we started hearing so much about outbreaks in long term care facilities in the state,” Buys said. “Sure enough, we saw that the rates between African Americans and Caucasians in the community were in the same direction, meaning that African Americans had higher case rates, case fatality rates, and population death rates than whites. In long term care settings, though, African Americans had higher case rates, but lower case fatality rates and population death rates.” 

Knowing how populations are impacted differently is crucial to better caring for them, Buys says, adding that he commends the state health department for releasing the level of data they have already, but hopes it continues to expand. 

“I hope that as we learn more about these nuances like I’ve been able to find, and that as the agency finds their rhythm and pace, they will be able to release even more data to help give us a picture of where we need to focus our efforts on prevention, treatment, and recovery of this pandemic,” Buys said. “In particular, it would be great to get more granular data on where the outbreaks are happening, including LTC (long-term care) names and locations; age breakdowns and other data points that are linked to each other.”

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