Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., on Tuesday easily defeated former Democratic Rep. Mike Espy in the runoff election in Mississippi – the final contest of a 2018 elections campaign that will give Republicans 53 Senate seats in the next Congress.
The Associated Press and other major news outlets called the race shortly before 10:30 p.m., Tuesday night. With about 75 percent of precincts reporting, Hyde-Smith was up 56-44.
Hyde-Smith’s win came only hours after President Trump made a last-minute push to keep the seat in Republican hands. He held two rallies in the state Monday night while warning Mississippi voters that Espy was too liberal for the state. “How does he fit in with Mississippi? I mean, how does he fit in?” Trump said during the first rally in Tupelo.
“She votes to make America great again and she votes for America first,” Trump said during the same rally while promoting Hyde-Smith. “Cindy is so important, so respected, we’ve got to send her back.”
Democrats made a late play in the state despite it being considered an uphill climb for them. They had hoped to replicate what happened in Alabama last year when Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., upset Judge Roy Moore in the deep-red state after allegations of sexual improprieties with an underage girl.
Heading into Tuesday, Hyde-Smith, a former Democrat, led in every public poll by double digits despite a number of high-profile missteps that hampered her campaign in the final weeks.
The Nov. 6 midterm election didn’t give any candidate the 50 percent needed to win, which forced the runoff. Soon after, a video emerged showing Hyde-Smith saying she’d sit “front row” at a public hanging, which she later chalked up as a joke before apologizing.
She insisted she meant no “ill will” despite charges that it was racially tinged, especially as she faced Espy, who is black, in Mississippi where more lynchings took place – 581 between 1882 and 1968 – than in any other state.
Days later, another video emerged showing Hyde-Smith saying Republicans wanted to make it a “little more difficult” to vote.
The Mississippi Republican was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant in March after longtime Sen. Thad Cochran resigned due to poor health. Hyde-Smith ran from her appointed seat in the Senate, and is slated to run again for her first full term in 2020 when Trump is also on the ballot.
Espy, who served as secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, would have been the first black candidate elected to the Senate in the state since Reconstruction. He was banking heavily on a record black vote to carry him across the finish line, especially with the multiple insensitive comments coming from his opponent.
No Democrat had won a Senate race in Mississippi since 1982.
