OKTIBBEHA COUNTY — For the first time in 20 years, the Republican nominee for president carried Oktibbeha County in a general election.
President-elect Donald Trump garnered 8,901 votes (48.8%) in the county during the Nov. 5 general election, compared to 8,851 (48.6%) for Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, according to updated tallies the circuit clerk’s office posted Thursday on Facebook. Those totals include election day, absentee and counted affidavit ballots.
After election day, Trump led Harris by 114 votes in the county with 920 affidavits left to process.
Trump also carried the state of Mississippi and tallied 312 electoral votes to win the presidency, compared to 226 for Harris.
The last time the Republican carried Oktibbeha County in a general presidential election was 2004, when incumbent George W. Bush defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry by more than 2,000 votes, according to election data posted on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website.
Democrat Barack Obama carried the county twice, beating John McCain by a mere six votes in 2008 and Mitt Romney by 1.8% in 2012.
Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, beat Trump in Oktibbeha County by 1.6% in 2016, and President Joe Biden carried the county by 5.4% in 2020.
While Brian Shoup, department head and professor of political science at Mississippi State University, believes the red shifts in Midwestern states may be a larger indictment on a Democratic Party seen as “out of touch,” he doesn’t think the 2024 results portend a long-term shift in Oktibbeha County – a generally blue county in a deep red state.
“College towns almost always have that definite streak toward a blue ‘tinge,’” Shoup told The Dispatch.
He thinks voters’ views on the economy – issues like inflation and whether they felt they were better off than four years ago – drove the electorate to the right in this election, and that clearly had some impact in Oktibbeha.
“The biggest calculus is cheap gas, cheap groceries, and a general sense of law and order,” Shoup said. “The perception of those things hurt Harris every bit as much as it hurt Biden (before Biden dropped out of the race in July). … The last year of Trump’s first term was marked by a complete absence of toilet paper. I think that made people angry and it affects people’s calculus.”
Incumbent Republicans also carried Oktibbeha in contested U.S. Senate and House races, with Sen. Roger Wicker besting Democratic challenger Ty Pinkins by 6.4% in the Senate race and Trent Kelly defeating Democratic challenger Dianne Dodson Black by a more than 3-to-1 margin in the 1st District House race.
The story was similar in Lowndes County, where Trump carried the presidential race and Wicker and Kelly also won.
In Clay and Noxubee counties, the Democrats took all three races.
Unofficial final totals, including affidavits, have been publicly released in Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay counties. Noxubee County won’t release its totals until Friday, Circuit Clerk Freda Phillips told The Dispatch. However, the 81 affidavits left to process after election day were not enough to change the outcome of any race there.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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