Is a Democrat headed for the Mississippi governor’s mansion?

Now that you just all have positioned your Tremendous Bowl bets and don’t wish to be a chalk-eater, right here’s a great underdog wager: A Democrat will win the Mississippi governor’s race this 12 months.

Yeah, sounds loopy.

The deep-red Magnolia State went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1976, for a U.S. Senator in 40 years — and never for a Democratic governor in virtually 1 / 4 century.

However incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves isn’t extremely popular. A Siena school ballot final month confirmed 57 % would like another person, and Reeves barely leads the Democratic candidate, Brandon Presley — it’s inside the margin of error.

Presley is a compelling candidate with promising points. The Republican-dominated state authorities has created an enormous scandal, ripping off cash meant for poor folks to provide to political supporters. The state has one among America’s worst well being care techniques.

An thrilling and enterprising digital information website, Mississippi At this time, is giving these entrenched politicians and rip-off artists nightmares with its scoops. It was based by Andy Lack, the previous chairman of NBC Information.

Presley could also be uniquely suited to the second. He has been a really efficient and common state utility regulator, voting towards price hikes and saving consumers billions. Republicans can have a tough time portray him as a left-wing Bernie Bro. Presley lives in a small city, in the same house where he grew up. He’s pro-life and pro-gun, requisites in Mississippi.

“Brandon is the perfect candidate Democrats have had in a few years,” says Curtis Wilkie, a famend nationwide political reporter earlier than returning virtually 20 years in the past to show writing and journalism at his alma mater, Ole Miss. Wilkie informed me, “He’s a bona fide populist, not a phony like Trump; he’s somebody who’ll kick ass with huge time folks on behalf of little folks.”

Presley made his announcement at a rural hospital that needed to shut. He careworn his deep Mississippi roots going again to “Mama” raising three kids, educating at a church faculty after dropping her job at a garment manufacturing unit. His father, an alcoholic, was murdered when he was within the third grade. Earlier, he was mayor of Nettleton, 15 miles from the hometown of the state’s most well-known native son, his cousin Elvis.

He careworn the tragic state of well being care: Mississippi has one of many highest percentages of uninsured within the nation and ranks close to the underside in well being care entry and outcomes. The state’s well being care commissioner warns that 28 rural hospitals are in severe hazard of closing.

A significant component is the governor’s refusal to hitch the Inexpensive Well being Care Act’s Medicaid enlargement; it’s one now of solely eleven states to reject this federal help.

The Siena survey says 80 % of Mississippians wish to settle for Medicaid enlargement. The governor, nonetheless, prices that, like “Obamacare,” that is “socialism,” socialized drugs.

Presley counters that it could herald about $1 billion to the state to supply higher protection to as many as 300,000 Mississippians — and hold open most of the imperiled rural hospitals.

Already this 12 months, the GOP-dominated state legislature refused to even enable a debate, a lot much less a vote, on Medicaid enlargement; it’s working to determine guidelines that will make it very tough for a citizens-initiated referendum to get on the poll, and this week the Home voted to create a separate court docket system and police drive inside the predominately Black metropolis of Jackson, the state capitol, to be arrange by white officers.

The mixture of a wonderful candidate and the GOP’s conceitedness and corruption give Presley an opportunity.

Some $77 million of welfare funds for poor folks have been illicitly channeled to political supporters and massive pictures.

Presley charges the governor is “caught in the course of the most important public corruption scandal in state historical past.”

Probably the most egregious instance earlier than Reeves was elected in 2019, was $5 million in funds for poor folks going to the College of Southern Mississippi for a volleyball court docket.

Reeves blames the present scandal on the administration of his predecessor, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant — however Mississippi At this time reported that $1.3 million of the rip-off went to Reeves’s private coach for a health middle, together with a $300,000 “bonus.” As Lt. Governor, earlier than profitable his present workplace, Reeves had an oversight position within the state funds.

The state employed an investigator, former U.S. Legal professional Brad Pigott, to unravel the corruption. After he issued subpoenas to highly effective gamers, he was fired final summer time. “I suppose I used to be getting too shut,” Pigott informed me in an interview. “Gov. Reeves has appointed himself commander in chief of the cover-up.”

In his Mississippi vernacular, Presley will channel Lord Acton’s statement that “energy corrupts, and absolute energy corrupts completely.” The Mississippi authorities right this moment is rife with Actonites.

Al Hunt is the previous govt editor of Bloomberg Information. He beforehand served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Avenue Journal. For nearly 1 / 4 century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Avenue Journal, then The Worldwide New York Instances and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics Warfare Room with James Carville. Observe him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.