JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Mississippi voters are deciding the last U.S. Senate race of the midterms, choosing between a white Republican Senate appointee backed by President Donald Trump and a black Democrat who was agriculture secretary when Bill Clinton was in the White House.
History will be made either way: Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, 59, would be the first woman ever elected to Congress from Mississippi, and Democrat Mike Espy, 64, would be the states first African-American U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Mississippis past of racist violence became a dominant theme after a video showed Hyde-Smith praising a supporter in early November by saying, If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be on the front row. She said it was an exaggerated expression of regard. More than a week after the videos release, she said she apologized to anyone that was offended by my comments, but also said the remark was used as a weapon against her.
Hyde-Smith was seen in another video talking about making voting difficult for liberal folks, and a photo circulated of her wearing a replica Confederate military hat during a 2014 visit to Beauvoir, a beachside museum in Biloxi, Mississippi, that was the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
Critics said Hyde-Smiths comments and Confederate regalia showed callous indifference in a state with a 38 percent black population, and some corporate donors, including Walmart, requested refunds on their campaign contributions to her.
Mississippi which still has the Confederate battle emblem on its state flag has a history of racially motivated lynchings. The NAACP website says that between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings in the United States, and that nearly 73 percent of the victims were black. It says Mississippi had 581 lynchings during that time, the highest number of any state.
Hyde-Smith was in her second term as Mississippis elected agriculture commissioner when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant chose her to temporarily succeed longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April amid health concerns. Tuesdays winner will serve the last two years of Cochrans six-year term.
Hyde-Smith has campaigned as an unwavering supporter of Trump, who campaigned with her Monday, praising her at a rally in the northeastern Mississippi city of Tupelo for voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
She stood up to the Democrat smear machine, Trump said.
With the Mississippi election undecided, Republicans hold 52 of the 100 Senate seats.
Mississippi last elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1982, but Espy was trying for the same kind of longshot win that fellow Democrat Doug Jones had nearly a year ago in neighboring Alabama, another conservative Deep South state where Republicans hold most statewide offices.
Espy campaigned as someone who would be able to bridge the partisan divide in Washington. He was endorsed by former Vice President Joe Biden, and three Democrats who are potential 2020 presidential candidates former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey traveled to Mississippi to campaign for him.
I ask you tonight, Mississippi. Its the third decade of the 21st century. Why are we still fighting about the color line? Espy said during a speech Monday night at a predominantly African-American church.
This is a campaign that goes to the color line and it reached across the color line, across the chasm of racial division, across the chasm of racial acrimony, Espy said.
If white voters outnumber black voters 2-to-1 on Tuesday, Espy would have to win 30 percent or more of white votes, a tough task in a state with possibly the most racially polarized electorate in the country. But if black voters rise to 40 percent of the electorate and Espy wins 9 out of 10, he needs less than a quarter of white votes to squeak out a victory.
