The prevailing thought going into Tuesday’s election is that if ever a Democrat were going to win the Governor’s race, this would be the year.

It pitted a bland, unpopular incumbent with no ideas to speak of linked to a shameful scandal and with unpopular views on health care among Republicans against a charismatic, relentless candidate who proposed new ideas about dinner-table issues that had broad appeal among Republicans and Democrats alike.

This was supposed to be a stark contrast to the lackluster campaign of Jim Hood, whose five-point loss to Tate Reeves in 2019 was to have been a hopeful sign for Democrats going into the 2023 race.

Instead, it turned out to be same song, second verse.

In a year where voter turnout was 75,000 lower than in 2019, Brandon Presley barely outperformed Hood.

It’s hard to imagine a better Democratic candidate than Presley or a worse Republican candidate than Reeves, so the prospects of a Democratic governor look pretty dim. No matter how they try, Democrats can’t close that five-point gap.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from Tuesday’s election is that, right now, if the Good Lord himself came down from heaven to run against a Republican in this state, he’d be conceding before the counting was done on election night.

Meanwhile, down-ballot Democrats in state-wide races got hammered yet again. There were no competitive races for Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Auditor, Insurance Commissioner, Agriculture Commissioner or Treasurer. There haven’t been in a long while.

Here’s the perplexing thing.

Mississippi is not nearly as “red” on issues as it is on candidates.

For example, in 2011 a majority of Republicans voted against a Personhood Amendment that would have been a de facto ban on abortion. Yet in that same election, Republicans overwhelmingly voted for Phil Bryant in the governor’s race even though Bryant was an unwavering proponent of Personhood. Likewise, polling shows a solid majority of Mississippians, including Republicans, favor Medicaid expansion, yet they twice elected Reeves, a Governor whose opposition to Medicaid expansion has been unwavering from the start. Mississippians, Democrats and Republicans alike, support re-establishing the ballot initiative to allow voters to create policy on issues where the Legislature won’t move, yet Reeves never used the power of his office to make that happen,

In fact, if voters were asked to vote only for which platform they preferred – without knowing the name or the party of the candidates –  it is almost certain that Brandon Presley would be putting a staff together today.

The bottom line: Democrats in this state can have winning issues. What they haven’t had is winning candidates.

Where does that leave the Democratic Party in Mississippi?

Under construction.

First, the party is going to have to find another 50,000 yellow-dog Democrats, voters who will cleave to the party as relentlessly as Mississippi Republicans do.

Second, it has to get organized, which means raising funds and bringing cohesion among Democrats wherever they may be.

Finally, they are going to have develop the kind of fund-raising organization necessary to identify candidates who can actually compete. As it is now, running as a Democrat in these races is like being in the witness protection program – no one has ever heard of you.

Democrats are understandably disappointed today. Many voters – especially in the Black community – are disillusioned. They are thinking, “What’s the point?”

Ironically, the best person to rally the troops may be the man who lost the Governor’s race Tuesday, were he so inclined to assume that role.

The clock on the 2027 election starts now.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].