President Donald Trump is set to campaign in Mississippi on behalf of embattled Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Monday night ahead of a runoff election on Tuesday to decide whether she will keep her seat in the U.S. Senate or lose it to Democrat opponent Mike Espy.
The president announced his plans with a Sunday morning tweet indicating that he would be attending two rallies for the senator, who has faced criticism since she made some controversial comments after the midterm elections earlier this month.
I will be in Gulfport and Tupelo, Mississippi, on Monday night doing two Rallies for Senator Hyde-Smith, who has a very important Election on Tuesday. She is an outstanding person who is strong on the Border, Crime, Military, our great Vets, Healthcare & the 2nd A. Needed in D.C.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2018
Wrapping up midterms
Trump is scheduled to head to Tupelo on Monday afternoon and Coast Coliseum that evening in an event that is expected to draw hundreds of protesters from a local activist group. These Mississippi rallies mark what will likely be the last campaign stops the president attends for several months; Tuesday’s runoff election, which is planned because neither candidate was able to obtain the 50 percent needed to secure victory on Nov. 6, will be the last time ballots are cast in this year’s midterms.
But just because the polls are opening up a full three weeks after the original election doesn’t mean Trump has forgotten about one of his most consistent supporters in the Senate. In addition to hosting at least two rallies on Monday, the president praised Sen. Hyde-Smith vehemently in an August tweet.
…Cindy has voted for our Agenda in the Senate 100% of the time and has my complete and total Endorsement. We need Cindy to win in Mississippi!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018
An embattled senator
But while Republicans prevailed in Senate races across the country earlier this month, and while Hyde-Smith isn’t new to Washington — she was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant (R) last spring after Sen. Thad Cochran (R) resigned — Hyde-Smith can use all the help she can get ahead of Tuesday’s runoff. The senator has long been accused of fostering racism, in part because it was discovered that she attended Lawrence County Academy, a primarily white private school with a Confederate general as its mascot that was founded in 1970 after the court-ordered desegregation of public schools, in the ’70s.
But the trouble didn’t stop there. Just after midterms, a video surfaced of Hyde-Smith that showed her saying she’d be in the “front row” of a “public hanging” if she was invited. While she apologized for the remarks, she lost funding from several major donors, including Walmart and the MLB.
“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row”- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.
Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr
— Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018
Espy, who is black, has used these incidents to his advantage in his campaign against the senator.
“Here’s what you’re not going to get from me,” he said in a speech earlier this month. “You’re not going to hear any talk about voter suppression. You’re not going to hear any talk about public hanging.”
But Espy — a former lobbyist, congressman, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under former President Bill Clinton — has some skeletons in the closet of his own: he was indicted on 39 felony counts, including mail and wire fraud, in 1997 after receiving over $35,000 “in favors from large companies with interests before the [g]overnment,” according to the New York Times; he worked for a company that forked out a whopping $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit after being accused of bribing officials to score bigger and better contracts with state prisons; and he collected $750,000 for lobbying on behalf of an African tyrant who is currently on trial at the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity.
The presidential nudge
Still, experts remain confident that Hyde-Smith will prevail on Tuesday. Recent polls show her up by a solid 10 points, and Trump’s rallies on Monday will likely give her the extra push she needs to push her over the top.
Also on Hyde-Smith’s side: Mississippi is historically a conservative state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982. Trump won the state in 2016 with 58 percent of the vote.
Whoever wins on Tuesday will serve the remaining two years of retired Sen. Cochran’s term.
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