Posted on November 28, 2018

Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith Wins Racially Charged U.S. Senate Race in Mississippi

Reuters, November 28, 2018

Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won a U.S. Senate special election runoff in conservative Mississippi on Tuesday, defeating a black challenger after a campaign that recalled the history of racist violence in the deep South state.

The white former state lawmaker, who was appointed to the Senate in April, overcame a controversy over her comment on public hangings to defeat Democrat Mike Espy in the last contest of the 2018 election cycle.

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Having been heavily favored to win the reliably Republican state, Hyde-Smith became engulfed in a political storm over a video showing her praising a supporter at a November 2 event by saying: ‘If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.’

The video sparked a furor in a state with a history of racism and violence against blacks, including lynchings.

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[Her supporters] also stuck by her as a photo was circulated of her wearing a replica Confederate military hat during a 2014 visit to Beauvoir — the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

It also emerged during the campaign that Hyde-Smith had attended a segregated high school and then sent her daughter to a majority white school.

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But Hyde-Smith triumphed by depicting Espy as too liberal for Mississippi, which last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1982, and by touting her support for President Donald Trump, who won the state by 18 percentage points in 2016.

Trump attended two get-out-the-vote rallies in the state on Monday, and tweeted his congratulations to Hyde-Smith after the race was called, saying he was ‘very proud’ of her.

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Her victory means Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the new U.S. Senate that convenes in January. With almost all precincts tallied, Hyde-Smith led by nearly 8 percentage points.

Espy, 64, campaigned as a moderate who would work with Trump and Republicans to benefit the state.

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