Former U.S. Congressmen Mike Espy, a Democrat, and Gregg Harper, a Republican, were civil toward each other even though they did not agree on much at a recent meeting of the Mississippi State Stennis Institute of Government and the Capitol Press Corps.
Espy, a former U.S. agriculture secretary and the first Black Mississippian elected to Congress since the 1800s, and Harper, a 10-year U.S. House member, were invited to give their thoughts and predictions about the upcoming presidential election.
They offered no surprises.
Harper echoed the Donald Trump talking points in touting the Republican nominee. He criticized Harris for the border, economy and on other issues often talked about by Trump.
Harper added that he thought Trump would win “if he acts presidential.”
Espy spent less time on issues. He gave a personal testimonial of his friendship with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. They both are alumni of Howard University, and she came to Mississippi to campaign for him when he was running for the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
He said Harris is well prepared and ready to be president.
Harper and Espy did agree on at least one issue. They both agreed at the luncheon meeting that Trump would win Mississippi.
“We’re not a swing state,” Espy said.
Mississippi has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee only once since 1956. Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter narrowly carried Mississippi in 1976 against Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. In 1964, after supporting legislation that eventually would lead to a surge of Black voters in the South, Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson garnered a pitiful 13% of the vote in Mississippi against Republican Barry Goldwater.
In a losing effort, Barack Obama garnered more votes in Mississippi than any Democratic candidate for president. In 2012 he won 562,949 votes in Mississippi in his successful re-election bid. But Republican nominee Mitt Romney comfortably defeated Obama in Mississippi with 710,746 votes.
In the 2020 election, Espy won more votes than any Democrat in the history of the state, also in a losing effort. In his election against Hyde-Smith, he garnered 578,806 votes, but only 44.1% of the total.
Other Democratic candidates have garnered a greater percentage of the vote, though turnout in those elections was lower.
The Republican who has won the most votes in Mississippi is Donald Trump – 756,789 in 2020.
Many expect Trump to do as well in Mississippi this election cycle as he did in 2020. The top two turnout elections for Democrats in terms of total votes, as stated previously, were Espy in 2020 and Obama in 2012.
That should not be surprising since Mississippi has the highest Black population in the nation at about 38%. Black Mississippians tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, just as most white Mississippians vote overwhelmingly Republican.
It should be no surprise that Black Mississippians turned out to vote for Obama, who was seeking in 2012 a second term after being elected as the nation’s first Black president four years earlier. And then in 2020, Espy was trying to become the first Black Mississippian elected to a U.S. Senate seat.
In 2024 Harris is attempting to be the first Black woman elected as president. So it is reasonable to assume that she, like Espy and Obama, will draw a large number of Black Mississippians to the polls in November.
In 2020, then-Espy campaign manager Joe O’Hern said that he believed the 2020 turnout among Black Mississippians was at record levels for Espy.
“You probably saw historic Black turnout this cycle,” O’Hern said after the 2020 election. “… Even with nobody thinking Biden was going to win Mississippi, you probably saw historic Black turnout.”
But that historic Black turnout was not enough to put Espy over the top, and almost all agree it would not be enough to put Harris over the top in November.
Is there a path to victory in a statewide election for a Democrat in Mississippi?
According to Statista, 66.7% of eligible voters nationwide cast a ballot in 2020 — the highest in the modern era. But the percentage of eligible Mississippians voting was near the bottom nationally at 60.2%.
In other words, there are votes to be found in Mississippi. Whether there are enough votes to push a Democrat to victory is another story.
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