The Red Wall: Why Victory Eludes Democrats in Mississippi
Former Vice President Mike Pence arriving in Mississippi, accompanied by Governor Tate Reeves, former Congressman Steven Palazzo, and other guests in 2019. Photo by Tia Dufour.
Last November, incumbent Mississippi governor Tate Reeves won reelection over his Democratic rival Brandon Presley by a meager three percent spread. In most circumstances, this margin would have sent shockwaves throughout the state. However, instead of interpreting the outcome as a rebuke against Republican governance, local media outlets used it to underscore the impossibility of a Democratic victory.
Although some may view the 2023 gubernatorial elections as a sign of changing political winds in the southern United States, Democrats are unlikely to be competitive in the region for the foreseeable future. After all, Republicans have won every statewide election since 2015. Upon a closer examination of these results, one factor is primarily responsible for this string of Democratic losses: racially polarized voting.
The Rise and Fall of the Democratic South
To understand the rise of Mississippi’s Republican party, one must first examine the roots of its staunchly conservative reputation. After the Civil War, former Confederate officials made a concerted effort to regain political power by oppressing Black residents and enacting some of the nation’s most draconian Jim Crow policies. Among these proposals was a law comprehensively disenfranchising Black voters, effectively granting white residents political dominion over the entire state. The impacts of this law were swift; between 1876 and 1960, Democratic presidential candidates won the state in all but one election, often by margins greater than 80 percentage points. Similar outcomes manifested at the Congressional level, with no Republicans being sent to the House of Representatives and Senate in over 90 and 101 years, respectively. As evidenced by these results, voting has been explicitly associated with racial sentiments since Mississippi’s readmission to the country.
However, the state’s politics dramatically shifted following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, the law was adamantly opposed by white southerners, who increasingly faulted the party for abandoning their interests. In the subsequent presidential election, Mississippi defied federal requests to enfranchise Black Americans, enabling white citizens to voice their collective grievances. The results were stunning: Johnson won less than 13% of the vote, constituting an 86-point swing from just four years prior. The outcome sent an unambiguous message to national parties that racial issues continued to dominate state politics.
As Black voters gradually gained suffrage towards the end of the 20th century, many liberal activists hoped that white anger sparked by the Civil Rights Movement would ultimately recede. This proved to be wishful thinking. In fact, since 1960, Mississippians have never voted for a Democratic presidential nominee. However, while the topline results are significant, they ignore important political shifts within the state. Although white residents have continued voting for Republican candidates en masse, Black residents have likewise supported Democratic candidates at near-unanimous rates. As a result, the Democratic vote share has partially rebounded in Mississippi, converging to the roughly 40% of residents who identify as Black.
The Myth of Statewide Depolarization
In most states, local elections see significantly different outcomes from presidential races due to the lower stakes involved. Mississippi is no exception to this rule; in 2023, Democrat Brandon Presley came agonizingly close to securing victory. However, although this specific result appears impressive, it’s worth contextualizing it with the three other statewide races that were held concurrently. In these elections, the Republican candidates received near-identical vote shares, garnering roughly 60% each. Such a margin closely reflects the state’s white demographic figures, underscoring how racial polarization played a crucial role in down-ballot contests. As a result, Presley’s narrow loss can be viewed as a testament to his personal appeal rather than a harbinger of drastic racial voting shifts. If anything, the outcome emphasizes how impregnable polarization trends prevent even the strongest of Democratic candidates from winning.
The same idea materializes when examining Congressional elections. For example, in the 2022 midterms, Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives received a collective 35% of the vote in Mississippi. This figure is nearly identical to the 38% the party earned in 2016, the last time all Congressional seats were contested. To make matters even more objective, the proportion of votes within each district appears to have remained constant throughout this time period. In the second Congressional district, the state’s only Democratic and Black-majority seat, incumbent Representative Benny Thompson never garnered less than 60% of the vote since 2004. Taken together, these patterns underscore the inelastic nature of Mississippi voters.
The Blueprint for Democratic Success
Under the current Democratic philosophy in Mississippi, there are two principal objectives in order to win: 1) maximizing Black voter turnout and 2) minimizing losses among white voters. While both of these aspirations appear plausible on paper, several compounding factors have made them increasingly difficult to achieve. On the former point, Black voters are declining as a proportion of the electorate. According to the most recent federal census, Mississippi was one of just three states to lose population. The brunt of this decrease can be attributed to the state’s delta region along the Mississippi River, where many Black communities are concentrated. If trends continue, this area will likely hemorrhage the very citizens who are crucial for any Democratic upset in the future. Without this staunch base of support, it’s difficult, if not downright impossible, to envision where Democrats could regain votes.
If anything, it will almost certainly not come from white citizens, who are some of the most culturally conservative voters in the nation. For example, a recent Pew Research poll found that a supermajority of these citizens believe abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances. With the Democratic party increasingly embracing reproductive rights as a central tenet of its platform, this messaging is likely to fall flat in Mississippi.
On another note, to understand the conditions necessary for Republicans to lose in Mississippi, one must also acknowledge the existence of runoffs. Under current law, candidates for statewide office must receive an outright majority of the vote or face a second election. The most recent prominent example was the 2018 Senate race, when Democrat Mike Espy essentially tied Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in the first round before suffering defeat three weeks later. The result highlights two fundamental characteristics of Mississippi runoffs. First, minorities often have lower turnout rates than their white counterparts. As such, even if a Black nominee like Espy is competitive in the preliminary race, they are unlikely to succeed in a later contest. In this manner, runoffs serve to accentuate polarization. On a similar note, these subsequent elections often pit white and Black candidates against one another, heightening racial tensions. As no Black candidate has ever been elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction, this structure implicitly perpetuates systems of white dominance. Given how race and party are inextricably connected, these dynamics also facilitate Republican electoral success.
As a party dependent on Black support in a majority-white state, Democrats face enormous challenges in achieving statewide success. In particular, with historical tensions continuing to manifest in the form of racially polarized voting, the party has struggled to eclipse 40% of the vote in recent elections. On the rare occasions in which candidates exceed these expectations, other regulations like runoffs often inhibit their ability to ultimately win.
If Democrats seek to regain their competitive status in Mississippi, they are presented with two starkly divergent options. On one hand, the state party can strive to expand their voter base by placating white voters. Such a proposal would require the state party to establish its independence from the broader national organization, particularly as it relates to social issues. Although this endeavor would likely entail a dramatic revision of the party’s platform, it has proven successful in neighboring southern states like Kentucky. Alternatively, partisan operatives could attempt to play the long game by waiting for the state’s political landscape to undergo transformative change. However, this strategy has far more ambiguity—for one, it’s unclear what could even bring about the development necessary in order to turn Mississippi into a more urban state conducive to Democratic interests. Moreover, the party would essentially be conceding defeat in elections over the next decade without a guarantee of future success.
Admittedly, given their uncertainties, these plans aren’t feasible in the forthcoming years because neither attempts to resolve the current voting dynamics embedded within the state. Unless unforeseen events prompt major changes in the region, racial polarization will continue to inhibit Democratic candidates in Mississippi, all but ensuring Republican domination.
Yusuf Arifin (CC ’27) is a staff writer at CPR studying political science. Originally from Portland, his main interests include American elections and civil rights.