The 2019 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2019, to choose the next

governor of Mississippi The governor of Mississippi is the head of government of Mississippi and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. state, state's Mississippi National Guard, military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either appro ...

. Incumbent Governor Phil Bryant was ineligible to run for a third term due to

term limit A term limit is a legal restriction on the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potential for monopoly, w ...

s. The Democratic Party nominated incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood, the only Democrat holding statewide office in Mississippi; the Republican Party nominated incumbent Lieutenant Governor

Tate Reeves Jonathan Tate Reeves (born June 5, 1974) is an American politician serving as the 65th List of governors of Mississippi, governor of Mississippi since 2020. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Reeves served as the ...

. In the general election, Reeves defeated Hood by a margin of 5.08%, with Reeves significantly underperforming

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

, who won the state by 17 points in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

Background

Situated in the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States. The term is used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, plant ...

as a

socially conservative Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on traditional social structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values and social institu ...

Bible Belt The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States and the Midwestern state of Missouri (which also has significant Southern influence), where evangelical Protestantism exerts a strong social and cultural influence. The region has been de ...

state,

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

is one of the most Republican states in the country. No Democrat has been elected to the governorship since

Ronnie Musgrove David Ronald Musgrove (born July 29, 1956) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 62nd governor of Mississippi from 2000 to 2004. A Democratic Party (United States), Democrat, he previously served as the 29th lieutenant governor ...

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

. However, the state's Democratic Attorney General, Jim Hood, who had held his office since 2004 and had yet to lose a statewide election, put the Republicans' winning streak of four elections in a row to the test, as the race became unusually competitive. Reeves defeated Hood in the general election by a margin of 5.1%, making this the closest a Democrat had come to winning a Mississippi gubernatorial election since 1999. Hood pulled off the best performance by a Democrat since the 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial election, when fellow Democrat

took 45.81% of the vote. Hood flipped the counties of

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, United States. Their traditional territory was in northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabama, western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Their language is ...

, Lafayette, Madison, Panola, and Warren, which had all voted for Republican

in the

2016 United States presidential election United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Republican Party (United States), Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Governor, Indiana governor Mike P ...

. Uniquely among the states, the

Constitution of Mississippi The Constitution of Mississippi is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of Mississippi delineating the duties, powers, structures, and functions of the state government. Mississippi's original constitution was adopted at a constituti ...

establishes a sort of

electoral college An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...

at the state level. For the election of governor. Article 5, Section 140 of the state constitution states that each state House district is assigned an electoral vote, and that a candidate running for governor must receive a majority of electoral votes (essentially, they must win a majority of state House districts) in addition to winning a majority of the popular vote in order to be elected governor. Article 5, Section 141 of the state constitution states that if no candidate wins both a popular and electoral vote majority, the state

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

is assigned to decide the winner, choosing from the two highest popular vote winners. This provision came into play only one time in the state's history; Democratic candidate

in the 1999 gubernatorial election garnered a plurality, but not a majority; the House selected Musgrove. In the lead-up to the election, controversy emerged over these constitutional provisions establishing a state system of electoral votes, with a federal lawsuit claiming the provisions are racially biased. These provisions were put in place with the 1890 Mississippi Constitution, itself established by the segregationist

Redeemers The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Party (Unite ...

and overturning the Reconstruction-era 1868 Constitution, as part of

Jim Crow Era The Jim Crow laws were U.S. state, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, "Jim Crow (character), Ji ...

policy to minimize the power of African Americans in politics. Because of this, as well as present

gerrymandering Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, pa ...

that packs African Americans into a small number of districts, the plaintiffs claim the provisions should be struck down on the basis of racial bias. On November 3, 2020, an amendment was passed removing the electoral college, with 79% of the vote.

Republican primary

Candidates

Nominee

lieutenant governor of Mississippi The lieutenant governor of Mississippi is the second-highest ranking elected executive officer in the U.S. state of Mississippi, below the governor of Mississippi, and is the only official in the state to be a member of two branches of state gov ...

Eliminated in runoff

* Bill Waller Jr., former chief justice of the Mississippi State Supreme Court and son of former Democratic Governor William "Bill" Waller. Sr (1972–1976)

Eliminated in primary

* Robert Foster, Mississippi state representative

Withdrawn

*Hal Marx, mayor of

Petal Petals are modified leaves that form an inner whorl surrounding the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly coloured or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''corol ...

(endorsed Tate Reeves)

Declined

* Thomas Duff, businessman * Lynn Fitch,

Mississippi state treasurer State Treasurer of Mississippi is a post created in 1817 when the state was admitted to the United States of America, Union. Before the state was formed by splitting the Alabama Territory from the Mississippi Territory, an equivalent post was t ...

(running for Mississippi attorney general) *Gerard Gibert, businessman and lottery board member * Philip Gunn, speaker of the

Mississippi House of Representatives The Mississippi House of Representatives is the lower house of the Mississippi Legislature, the lawmaking body of the U.S. state of Mississippi. According to the state constitution of 1890, it is to comprise no more than 122 members elected for ...

Trent Lott Chester Trent Lott Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, author, and politician who represented Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1989 and in the United States Senate from 1989 to 2007. ...

, former

U.S. senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

* Chris McDaniel, Mississippi states senator and candidate for the U.S. Senate in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

and

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

(endorsed Tate Reeves) * Mike Randolph, presiding justice of the Mississippi State Supreme Court *Andy Taggart, former chief of staff to Governor Kirk Fordice (running for Mississippi attorney general)

Endorsements

Polling

Results

Runoff

Democratic primary

Candidates

Nominee

* Jim Hood, Mississippi attorney general

Eliminated in primary

* Michael Brown * William Bond Compton Jr., candidate for governor of Mississippi in 2007 and 2011, candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2014, nominee for the Mississippi House of Representatives in the 83rd district in 2015 * Robert J. Ray * Robert Shuler Smith, Hinds County district attorney * Gregory Wash * Velesha Williams, former director for the Metro Jackson Community Prevention Coalition and former U.S. Army officer * Albert Wilson, businessman and community organizer

Withdrawn

*Phillip West, former state representative and former mayor of Natchez (endorsed Jim Hood)

Declined

* Anthony Witherspoon, mayor of

Magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...

Endorsements

Polling

Results

Other candidates

Constitution Party

Declared *Bob Hickingbottom

Independents

Declared *David Singletary, U.S. Air Force veteran and former hotel owner

General election

Predictions

Debates

Endorsements

Polling

with Tate Reeves, Jim Hood, and Bill Waller Jr.
with Bill Waller Jr. and Jim Hood

Results

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

* Adams (largest city: Natchez) *

(largest city:

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

) *

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

(largest city:

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

) * Copiah (largest city: Hazlehurst) * Issaquena (largest city: Mayersville) *

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

(largest city: Bay Springs) * Kemper (largest city: De Kalb) * Lafayette (largest city:

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

) * Madison (largest city: Madison) *

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia *Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria ** Marshall railway station Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Is ...

(largest city: Holly Springs) * Oktibbeha (largest city: Starkville) * Panola (largest city: Batesville) * Pike (largest city: McComb) * Quitman (largest city: Lambert) * Sharkey (largest city: Rolling Fork) * Tallahatchie (largest city: Charleston) * Warren (largest city: Vicksburg) * Yazoo (largest city: Yazoo City)

By congressional district

Reeves won three of four congressional districts.

Notes

Partisan clients

References

External links

Mississippi State Constitution
Official campaign websites
Tate Reeves (R) for Governor

Jim Hood (D) for Governor

Bob Hickingbottom (C) for Governor

David Singletary (I) for Governor
{{2019 United States elections

Gubernatorial A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a ''governor'' ma ...

Mississippi gubernatorial elections

Mississippi gubernatorial election

gubernatorial election A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a ''governor'' ma ...

Background

Republican primary

Candidates

Nominee

Eliminated in runoff

Eliminated in primary

Withdrawn

Declined

Endorsements

Polling

Results

Runoff

Democratic primary

Candidates

Nominee

Eliminated in primary

Withdrawn

Declined

Endorsements

Polling

Results

Other candidates

Constitution Party

Independents

General election

Predictions

Debates

Endorsements

Polling

Results

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

By congressional district

See also

Notes

References

External links