Senate runoff brings spike in last-minute donations and more than $2.6M in outside spending.
'As Mississippi’s U.S. Senate runoff enters the homestretch, high-profile backers of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Mike Espy have dumped more than $2.6 million into the race since the Nov. 6 election.
Mississippians should expect to see at least some of those last-minute campaign donations reflected in a 12th-hour TV advertising blitzkrieg and voter mobilization efforts, including door knocking and direct mailers.
With a little over a week until the Nov. 27 runoff, campaigns are required to disclose contributions at or above $1,000 within 48 hours, and the Clarion Ledger is keeping close watch as the federal filings roll in.'
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/19/mssen-hyde-smith-espy-runoff-brings-last-minute-donations-mississippi-elections/2022868002/
In Mississippi, Issues of Race Complicate a Senate Election.
JACKSON, Miss. — A special election for the Senate in Mississippi has become a test of racial and partisan politics in the Deep South, as a Republican woman, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and an African-American Democrat, Mike Espy, compete for the last Senate seat still up for grabs in the 2018 midterm campaign.
Ms. Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to a seat in the Senate earlier this year, seemed until recently to be on a glide path toward winning the election in her own right. Mr. Espy, a former cabinet secretary under President Bill Clinton, was running a strong underdog campaign but appeared highly unlikely to overcome Mississippi’s strongly conservative inclination.
Yet the trajectory of the election was thrown into doubt last week when a video was circulated showing Ms. Hyde-Smith, 59, praising a supporter by telling him that if he invited her “to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”
Facing an uproar in a state divided by race and deeply scarred by a history of lynchings carried out against African-Americans, Ms. Hyde-Smith has since retreated from the campaign trail, ducking reporters’ questions and declining to apologize. A former state agriculture commissioner, Ms. Hyde-Smith has instead pursued a strategy aimed at shoring up her support with conservative whites, and she enlisted President Trump to campaign for her on the eve of a Nov. 27 runoff vote.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/us/politics/mississippi-senate-election-cindy-hyde-smith-espy.html
