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TUPELO, Miss. President Trump took part Monday in a fiery racial debate in the cradle of Confederation, criticizing Mississippi on the eve of an election in the Senate causing divergent attitudes regarding the legacy of segregation and of lynching.
Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican senator and her adherence to Confederate traditions and comments on a "public hanging" rekindled painful memories of the dark history of the Mississippi – the president has again plunged into a cultural storm.
In tying with Hyde-Smith, Trump supports a female politician who said that she would sit down with a supporter in the front row of a public hanging, wearing a Confederate uniform. to promote tourism in the property of Jefferson Davis and that she was a graduate of an entirely white segregation. academy while sending his daughter to another.
"Race is still the key to living in Mississippi," said Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist and native of Mississippi, who wrote a book about his life here. "It's just always present and it's the biggest determinant, still in Mississippi, of the path of life."
Trump's decision to travel to Mississippi on Monday aboard Air Force One to hold two campaign rallies – one here in Tupelo and the second in Biloxi – on the eve of the second round of Tuesday's election highlighted uncertainty about Hyde-Smith's candidacy.
The president was on a rescue mission to mobilize his supporters around the incumbent senator, who was appointed by Governor Phil Bryant (right) to fill a vacancy earlier this year, left behind by Senator Thad Cochran (right ). Republican strategists said privately that Hyde-Smith had stumbled and struggled to generate momentum, though they're hopeful that she will ultimately prevail.
Hyde-Smith is presented as a clone of Trump. She surveyed the state in a country bus with a massive image of herself and the president, nicknamed "The MAGA Wagon", a play on the slogan of Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign. She boasts of having voted with Trump "100% of the time," including to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Subject after stake, from trade to immigration, she agrees with the president.
Still, the contest is much more competitive than expected in the Republican Mississippi, a state deemed to have increased in 2016 by 18 percentage points. Following the pending statement by Hyde-Smith, public and private polls have measured voters' enthusiasm for Black Democrat Democrat candidate Mike Espy, who has made racial discrimination a central theme in recent years. weeks of the campaign.
Neither Trump nor Hyde-Smith made explicit mention of racial controversies around the race when they gathered a crowd of several thousand people crammed against the cold as the sun set on the tarmac of the day. airport, here in Tupelo.
The president called the second round of voting "one of the most important elections in your life," and he made Hyde-Smith the champion of his program to strengthen the Republican majority in the Senate.
"She votes to make America even better and she votes for America first," said Trump, referring to two of his slogans. "Cindy is so important, so respected that we have to send her away. If we win tomorrow, we will be at 53-47. "
Hyde-Smith, meanwhile, has insisted on its traditionally conservative ideology, saying it would work to reduce taxes, loosen regulations, support the military and law enforcement, and fight for anti-abortion policies.
"I will defend your conservative values and that's what will be on tomorrow's ballot," said Hyde-Smith.
Espy, a former congressman and secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, has adopted his position as an outsider. He told reporters on Monday that he had planned to speak at an evangelical event while Trump was campaigning with Hyde-Smith.
"We welcome him to Mississippi," said Espy. "He will say what he has to say, and we will praise the Lord."
As voters go to the polls Tuesday, the question is whether the Mississippians will retreat to their natural partisan positions or whether, as was the case in neighboring Alabama a year ago, enough Republican voters suburbs break with their party to provoke a democratic disarray.
Hyde-Smith and his allies are banking on the first, and hope that Trump's visit reminds voters that she would be a boost for her agenda.
"I have no doubt that Mike Espy will vote with [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi and Cindy Hyde-Smith will vote with President Trump. That's why Cindy Hyde-Smith will win the victory, "said Henry Barbour, Mississippi-based Republican strategist and leader of the Mississippi Victory Fund, a super PAC Hyde-Smith.
Last December, in Alabama, also Republican, Democrat Doug Jones won a special Senate election following credible allegations that GOP candidate Roy Moore allegedly harassed and assaulted underage girls while he was in trouble. he was in his thirties.
Trump defended Moore against the allegations, campaigned for him and ordered the Republican National Committee to maintain his support for his campaign, even as other GOP figures and groups – including the Republican National Senators Committee – withdrew their support.
Although the majority of white voters supported Moore, Jones won by increasing turnout among African Americans and other loyal Democrats, as well as among suburban whites who were Republicans but rejected Moore.
"The question is whether white attitudes have changed in Mississippi?" Said Democratic strategist Paul Begala. "In Alabama, they have. The winning message for Doug Jones was, "Do not embarrass us, Alabama," but I simply do not know. It's still Mississippi.
Supporters of Hyde-Smith say it would be wrong to compare his candidacy to that of Moore.
"Cindy Hyde-Smith made a clumsy comment and did not clean it up fast enough," said Barbour, compared to the charges against Moore.
Hyde-Smith defended his comment as an exaggerated gesture of friendship, but many interpreted it as an allusion to lynching.
Hyde-Smith made a limited apology and said his remarks had been "twisted" for political ends.
"For all those who have been offended by my comments, I apologize," she said. "There was no will or bad intention in my statement."
Espy replied, "I do not know what you have in your heart, but we all know what came out of your mouth. This has given our state a black eye that we do not need. It just rejuvenates the old stereotypes we no longer need. "
As he did with Moore, Trump defended the senator.
"Cindy Hyde-Smith is a spectacular woman. She is an excellent senator, "the president told reporters last week. "She made a statement that, I know, hurt her a lot, and it was just kind of jokingly said, as she said. And she's a great woman, and it's a shame she has to go through that. "
The race in the Senate has become a kind of proxy for a debate on Mississippi's identity. Capital of the American Lynchings, Mississippi is the latest state in the Union to incorporate the Confederate battle flag into its state flag. But the state has also been striving to modernize and has attempted to take into account its white supremacist past by opening a new museum of state history and civil rights under the same roof in Jackson.
The Hyde-Smith campaign has been toxic in some circles. AT & T, Walmart and other large companies have taken steps to stand out from the senator by publicly demanding that their donations be returned to him.
Elise Jordan, a Mississippi citizen who served in the George W. Bush administration and is now a Republican commentator, wrote in a Clarion Ledger editorial that the theme of the election was "the values we want our great state to represent in the world. . "
"I know that a lot of Mississippians are worried about sending a Democratic senator to Washington, but I worry more about what Cindy Hyde-Smith, who did not presented that a late and superficial excuse for comments favorable to the repression of the voters and, especially, to the public hangings, will be constant reminder of the darkest days of our history, "writes Jordan." Is it a risk of reputation that Mississippians can afford to take? "
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