Brandon Presley could have one advantage in governor’s race: the issues

To cite baseball legend Yogi Berra, the 2023 gubernatorial election may very well be “deja vu once more.”

Within the 2019 election, Republican Tate Reeves opposed increasing Medicaid whereas Democrat Jim Hood supported it. Hood supported lowering or eliminating Mississippi’s grocery tax whereas Reeves advocated, as an alternative, for eliminating the revenue tax. Hood needed to completely fund public schooling whereas Reeves fought the hassle all through his eight-year tenure as lieutenant governor.

4 years later there’s a brand new Democratic nominee, however the rising points really feel the identical going into the 2023 election. Democrat Brandon Presley, like Hood, helps increasing Medicaid to supply well being care protection for primarily the working poor, helps eliminating the state’s gross sales tax on groceries and champions absolutely funding public schooling.

Reeves nonetheless opposes increasing Medicaid, would quite reduce the revenue tax than the tax on groceries and has spoken derisively about current legislative efforts to completely fund public schooling.

In 2019, Reeves gained by 5% — 52% to 47%. What’s completely different in 2023? Is it the identical music, completely different verse, sport over for the 2023 election?

Maybe. However a breadth of current polling signifies that on the problems — and solely on the problems — the Democrat wins.

A ballot earlier this yr by Siena School Analysis Institute, commissioned by Mississippi At present, revealed 80% assist for Medicaid enlargement the place well being care protection is supplied for the working poor with the federal authorities paying the majority of the price. If that’s not convincing sufficient, a second more moderen ballot by Siena and Mississippi At present discovered 75% assist for increasing Medicaid.

Siena is documented by the FiveThirtyEight Weblog, a good weblog for its knowledge evaluation, as being maybe one of the best pollster within the nation.

However it needs to be identified different pollsters through the years even have discovered robust assist amongst Mississippians for Medicaid enlargement.

A Siena ballot additionally discovered 79% assist for absolutely funding the Mississippi Ample Schooling Program, which offers the majority of state funding for the fundamental wants of colleges — wants like lecturers, textbooks, buses and water and lights.

Chopping or eliminating Mississippi’s 7% tax on groceries, the best tax of its sort within the nation, is also extra in style than eliminating the revenue tax, in accordance with the Siena ballot.

If all that is true, why did Reeves win in 2019 by a cushty, however not landslide margin, and why is he favored to win once more in November 2023?

The simplest and most blatant reply is cash. In 2019, Reeves spent $15.9 million in comparison with Hood’s $5.3 million on the gubernatorial marketing campaign, in accordance with data on file with the Secretary of State’s workplace. Reeves plans on comparable domination in marketing campaign spending throughout this yr’s elections. Going into this yr, the incumbent Reeves had $8 million in marketing campaign money available in comparison with $723,800 for Presley, the northern district public service commissioner.

Maybe there are different points extra essential to Mississippians than the aforementioned points that have been polled by Siena. However it’s onerous to think about points like schooling, well being care and taxes should not manner up on everybody’s lists.

Reeves will need to focus the marketing campaign on different points extra carefully related, pretty or unfairly, with nationwide Democrats. He more than likely may have an awesome cash benefit to craft that narrative and get it out to the general public.

And it’s simpler to promote that narrative as a result of for the overwhelming majority of Mississippians, for no matter cause, their default vote in for the Republican candidate. Mississippi is a stable Republican state that has not voted for a Democrat for governor since 1999 or a Democrat for president since 1976.

To attempt to make electoral historical past, Presley will try to attach his marketing campaign to the problems of well being care, schooling and taxes quite than these points that Reeves will need to speak about — these points related to nationwide Democrats.

If he can do this, he may need an opportunity.

Mississippi’s loyalty or maybe extra precisely opposition to the nationwide Democratic Get together and Reeves’ cash will make Presley’s process troublesome. It’s a process no Democrat on a statewide degree has been in a position to accomplish for a very long time.

However Presley could have no less than one distinct benefit within the race: the problems.