T
he 2020 election saw several competitive southern Senate races. As Election Day crept closer, polling was tight in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. But there was another competitive race hiding outside the Democratic Party’s consciousness for most of the election cycle. In ruby-red Mississippi, Democrat Mike Espy overcame a twenty-five-point polling deficit, narrowing his race with Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith to one point. For the first time in recent memory, Mississippi Democrats dared to dream of statewide office. Espy and Hyde-Smith were no strangers. After Governor Phil Bryant appointed Hyde-Smith to the Senate in 2018, Espy launched—as his team described to me—a last-minute and underfunded bid in the ensuing special election. Despite Espy’s experience as a three-term congressman and the first Black secretary of agriculture, he couldn’t beat Hyde-Smith after forcing a runoff.
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Espy’s 2020 campaign—which I joined as a senior research associate—did not suffer the same issues as his 2018 attempt. He filed early and assembled a team of experienced operatives. He raised $15.7 million from over 200,000 donors, historic numbers for any
The bridge is three-fourths finished. But you gotta keep building.
advantage—and their seven-to-one paid media edge—to work. They ran television ad after television ad, some positive about Espy’s character and many negative about Hyde-Smith’s. They attacked her for supporting a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. They criticized her refusal to hold town halls. They condemned her numerous votes to cut vital state funding. And they highlighted her ranking as the least effective and most Trump-loyal senator—all to assert that Mississippi deserved better. Espy’s statewide tour included over one hundred COVID-compliant events. As his campaign reached its end, Espy pushed harder with a five-day get-out-the-vote bus tour. All the while, Hyde-Smith refused to debate Espy, ducked media questions, and allowed only her staunchest supporters into rallies. “For [her campaign], there was a danger to including media or extending invites to people who might ask reasonable questions or demand accountability,” Espy Communications Director Kendall Witmer argued. Meanwhile, the MSDP unleashed a grassroots organizing campaign never before seen from a Mississippi Democrat. Volunteers and staff knocked on almost 600,000 doors, focusing on infrequent voters who had avoided the ballot box since President Obama’s 2008 campaign. The MSDP also launched a voter suppression hotline staffed by dozens of lawyers, paralegals, and volunteers. According to MSDP Director Jared Turner, the initiative was better funded than any prior attempt from Democrats in Mississippi. It sought to give Espy a fair chance in a hotbed of voter suppression, and it received hundreds of thousands of calls. Beyond finances, the 2020 cycle seemed perfect for Espy. He and his campaign deftly “met the moment,” as Espy put it, on race and health care. As police violence and racial justice captured the political discourse like never before, Espy spoke about his experiences in the civil-rights-era South. He retold the challenges of integrating his public high school, from teachers blasting him with fire extinguishers to his peers hurling the n-word at him. Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith recited “law and order” talking points as she dodged questions on her history of racial insensitivity. In 2014, Hyde-Smith posted an image on Facebook of her wearing a Confederate soldier’s cap, rifle and all. Four years later, she said she would attend a public hanging. Espy labeled her “an anachronism, a throwback to the past.” When the pandemic hit in March, the
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statewide candidate in Mississippi, let alone from a Democrat. Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith raised a quarter of that, less than any Senator seeking reelection. In one filing period, Espy outraised her forty-five to one. Espy’s campaign and the Mississippi Democratic Party (MSDP) put this fundraising
