Mississippi 2015 Megathread

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Blegh, Joel Bomgar wins in H58.

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Not a single vote in from DeSoto or Madison (the city), and very few from the Coast.

It doesn't look good for MHB, but there are a LOT of votes still out there.

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Mayor Mary losing Madison Co with over 50% of the vote in there.

Madison (the city) isn't in yet.

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Looks like Longwitz probably survives. The Stone/Hale race is razor-thin.

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Gray leading almost every county: https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2015&off=5&elect=1&fips=28&f=0

He has no website, no campaign, and raised $0. WTF.

If he wins, the Mississippi Democratic primary is officially the biggest joke in America.

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I think she'll keep him under 50 and beat him handily in 3 weeks. But still, absolutely unacceptable.

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Looks like 4 Republican House incumbents in DeSoto County are going down. Crazy.

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Haha, the media here doesn't know whether Gray is black or white.

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Gray back at 50%.

That's just rounding. He's still below: https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2015&off=5&elect=1&fips=28&f=0

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We have a Sojourner - Dearing rematch in S37.

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I'm at a complete loss for words over this. The guy literally raised $0 and never campaigned. He didn't speak at Neshoba.

Both of his opponents had signs all over the Jackson metro area at least.

Who the Hell are all these people, in all 82 counties who voted for a nobody they'd never heard of?

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Interesting results, didn't expect Gray to do that well. Wasn't Slater favored?

Yes, but that means nothing when half the primary voters are mindless freaks who just select the first name listed on the ballot.

That's not nearly enough to explain it. Jelani Barr came before Tim Johnson on the ballot and was a similar no-campaigner. Maybe "Tim Johnson" and "Robert Gray" are generic-man-sounding names, but this is downright bizarre. Completely nonsensical.

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The entire leadership of the state Democratic Party should resign over this.

Un. F***ing. Believable.

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I've pulled my avatar out of disgust.

Maybe this will be good for the state party in the long run. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you climb out of the hole.

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A few grasping-at-straws theories:

• His name being first on the ballot helped
• A lot of suburban Democrats (like me) voted in the Republican primary due to local races, costing Slater votes
• A lot of rural Republicans vote in Democratic primaries due to local races, and they may have just voted for the first name, or intentionally picked the generic/white-sounding man's name.
• Some voters may have heard a blurb about Democrats running a lesbian and somehow confused Pritchett with Slater/Short and therefore picked a man's name
• Slater and Short did have campaign signs, but they may have been almost entirely in the Jackson Metro, where most people voted Republican

Rickey Cole better resign over this. What a joke.

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I am disgusted. I never thought we'd hit rock bottom like this.

Vicki Slater went out on a limb to run for governor. Yes, she was always going to be a big longshot against Bryant, but she was at least going to try.

In future years, it's going to be even harder to recruit viable candidates for statewide office because they'll have legitimate reason to worry they'll get Grayed.

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One question I have is how much advertising did any of the Dem candidates do? Based on this outsider's perspective, it seems to me that none of the three candidates did any advertising and voters just went for whoever came first alphabetically.

Slater and Short at least had billboards and spoke at Neshoba.

ETA: Slater had TV commercials too, although I don't remember seeing one.

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Well, it looks like Robert Gray isn't a raving lunatic, nor is he a Bible-thumping conservative. So that's a relief. I can vote for him in November with a clean conscience.

Still demand the resignation of all the state Democratic party leadership, of course.

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Jim Hood could really suffer with Slater not at the top of the ticket, although I still think he's narrowly favored.

I think Hood should be fine. He won huge landslides at the same time Eaves and DuPree were going down hard. Gray can't really do THAT much worse than DuPree did anyway. I'm comfortable calling the race Likely D right now.

Also, answer me this...what would happen if Gray decided to drop-out?  Seems like MS Dems might be able to convince a man who didn't even bother voting for himself that he should get out of the race.  If he dropped-out, would the MS Dem Committee be able to pick another candidate to represent them in the general?  Could it be Slater?

I think the party would get absolutely skewered nationally and in Mississippi if it dumped its fairly-elected nominee for someone who lost, even more than we're getting skewered now.

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Here are my post-primary ratings. Only changed the ratings on a couple of races (but only changed the outcome of one). The one outcome that I did change was the Sojourner/Dearing matchup.

House: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GQqfDaAOeviyYURK4LpFpGCr0WxyiUWFjXMxrZppfSQ/edit#gid=0

Senate: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bzQrna6lzMbBQDkTjnQSWBRxscVeuj32KA2bOHh83Zc/edit#gid=0

I don't know much about the House races (there are so many of them!), but I think your Senate predictions look about right.

All of your "Likely ..." are probably Safe (especially Sampson Jackson, who is unopposed), although you be may using a very strict definition of "Safe"

Personally, I have very little faith in Eric Powell, a black Democrat, winning in a 90% white, 70% Romney district. I don't have any real knowledge of the race beyond the demographics, but I think white NE Mississippians went through a weird phase in 2007/2008 (also electing Travis Childers) and then snapped back to normal once Obama became president. I think Powell's victory there in 2007 is more likely to be lightning-in-a-bottle fluke rather than something he can repeat in 2015.

ETA: If you have Dawkins winning, it's still R+1 right?

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One of the several reasons Personhood failed is that blacks overwhelmingly rejected it.

If Powell "supported" Personhood, it's because he was a desperate wuss trying to say anything to get reelected. I highly doubt he actually believes that abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape, that birth control pills and IVF should be banned, that police should investigate miscarriages the same way they would in a child's death, etc.

Either way, I don't really care if he wins in November or not after knowing that. Ideally, we'd primary out every "Democratic" legislator who supported Personhood -- every single one of them is either a beyond-the-pale extremist conservative, or will say anything while flailing to get votes. Personhood is the absolute craziest, most vile, off-the-deep-end right-wing idea that's been somewhat mainstream this century.

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Our SOS website is useless.

The "official" primary results are up here: http://www.sos.ms.gov/Elections-Voting/Pages/Results-2015.aspx

Except the Republican PDF file is missing several counties. And the Democratic PDF file is an awful, unreadable xerox copy (I know that's how it usually is, but this one takes the cake.)

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That's ... awesome.

I hope people put signs like that up all over the state.

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Well, one of the Republican representatives just pulled a Kevin McCarthy:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://t.co/0D9039d0eZ

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BREAKING: People in Mississippi are racist.

Meh, Republicans all over the country make openly racist comments like this. It's hardly confined to Mississippi or even to the South.

What will be the likely result of this initiative?

Haven't seen any polls (seriously, where the Hell is PPP, especially after all the recent flag controversy? Too busy snickering at Deez Nuts?), but my best guess is that it passes.

Black people seem to actually be fired up for voting on this, and I would expect rich and middle-class suburban whites (at least those who send their kids to public school) to vote for it too, similar to the Personhood initiative from 2011.