The next Democratic state to turn from red to blue may be a surprise: Mississippi voters may elect a Democratic governor soon, according to a shocking new poll.
Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley could help Democrats break through the deep south, solid Republican state, according to a poll from Mississippi Today/Sienna College.
Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office in nearly 20 years.
Only 33 percent of voters say they’ll back Gov. Tate Reeve, R-M.S., while 57 percent said they’ll vote for someone else. If another Republican candidate runs as a spoiler, Presley could win the governor’s mansion.
“We’ve got a state filled with good people, but horrible politicians. Tate Reeves is a man with zero conviction and maximum corruption,” Presley said. “He looks out for himself and his rich friends instead of the people that put him into office.”
“We can build a Mississippi where we fight corruption, not embrace it. Where we cut taxes, lower the cost of healthcare and create good jobs,” he said in a video. “A Mississippi where we finally focus on the future, not the past.”
Mississippi deserves leaders who fight for our families, children and workers rather than themselves and their rich friends. We deserve leaders who will never forget where they came from or who put them in office.
That's why I'm running for Governor of Mississippi. pic.twitter.com/hyQzrLX0X1
— Brandon Presley (@BrandonPresley) January 12, 2023
Meanwhile, Mississippi is seeing higher wages, an increase in the high school graduation rate, and an “economic boom” that has led to a $4 billion surplus in the state budget, Reeves said in his State of the State speech on Jan. 30.
“The people of Mississippi are our state’s strength. It is because of your hard work that our state is primed and ready to face the challenges of tomorrow,” Reeves said during his speech on the south steps of the state Capitol.
Republican Reeves, who is seeking a second term in the state’s highest office, used part of his speech to touch on some of the same themes that other conservatives are using across the United States. He said “radical liberals” are threatening society by allowing children to choose their own pronouns and “advancing untested experiments and persuading kids that they can live as a girl if they’re a boy, and that they can live as a boy if they’re a girl.”
Reeves renewed his call for the GOP-controlled Legislature to eliminate Mississippi’s income tax. He signed Mississippi’s largest income tax reduction into law last year, but some top lawmakers resisted a total elimination because of concerns about future funding for education, health care and other services.
“Whether it’s the record investment or all-time low unemployment, the all-time high graduation rate or standing up to the radical left’s war on our values — Mississippi is winning, and our state is on the rise,” Reeves said.
Reeves praised the U.S. Supreme Court for using a Mississippi case last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had legalized abortion rights nationwide. Mississippi has a law that bans most abortions, and Reeves said he wants to pursue “a new pro-life agenda” with child care tax credits, more adoptions and an expansion of state support for pregnancy resource centers that provide baby supplies and counsel women against abortion.
Reeves said he was proud to have signed a significant teacher pay raise in 2022. He said he wants legislators to pass a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” that would “further cement that when it comes to the usage of names, pronouns, or health matters, schools will adhere to the will of parents.”
“There is no room in our schools for policies that attempt to undercut parents and require the usage of pronouns or names that fail to correspond with reality,” Reeves said.
Reeves said the capital city of Jackson has an unacceptably high rate of homicides, and he called on legislators to put more money into the Capitol Police, who patrol part of the city.
“In Mississippi we choose to fund the police,” he said. “We choose to back the blue.”
The governor said Mississippi should boost health care by cutting bureaucracy, increasing medical residency programs and relying on technology.
“Don’t simply cave under the pressure of Democrats and their allies in the media who are pushing for the expansion of Obamacare, welfare and socialized medicine,” Reeves said.
Presley gave the Democrats’ response to the State of the State. Presley recorded his own brief speech inside a shuttered hospital that used to employ more than 200 people in Newton.
“The reality is that under Tate Reeves’ leadership, we’re moving in the wrong direction,” Presley said. “Nothing makes that clearer than where I’m standing tonight.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article