On Monday, longtime Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced he would run for the state’s open governorship in 2019, with a formal kickoff scheduled for Wednesday. As the sole Democrat to win statewide office in Mississippi during the last 15 years, Hood may give Democrats their best chance at winning the governor's office since former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove last prevailed in 1999. However, an anti-democratic relic of Mississippi's 1890 Jim Crow constitution could stand in Hood’s way—even if he wins the most votes on Election Day.
The provision in question requires gubernatorial candidates to win both a majority of the statewide vote and a majority of the 122 districts that make up the state House. If no candidate wins both the popular vote and a majority of districts, the state House then picks the winner from the top two finishers.
That stacks the race against Hood or any other Democrat twice over: First, because the Republicans who control the state legislature have aggressively gerrymandered their own maps, making it much harder for a Democrat to win a majority of House districts than for a Republican; and second, because that same gerrymandered GOP majority in the House could simply install the Republican candidate as governor even if he or she loses the statewide vote.
That effectively gerrymanders the gubernatorial election in favor of the Republicans, since Hood would have to win the statewide vote by a wide margin in order to also carry a majority of House districts and avoid having his fate determined by the House. Yet just as with Donald Trump and the Electoral College, Republicans can win even if they lose.
This perverse provision has its roots in a racist constitution that was explicitly designed to eliminate the power of black voters.
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