Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves won a second term Tuesday after defeating Brandon Presley, a longtime public service commissioner. Presley's well-funded campaign portrayed the Democrat as a “pro-gun” and “pro-life” candidate who was trying to defeat a crooked and wealthy Republican governor but Mississippi voters were not persuaded by a populist campaign that promised to expand Medicaid and eliminate the state grocery tax.
Reeves won 51%-47% over Presley, overcoming non-stop political ads and a massive effort to increase black voter turnout.
Election-eve stories said national Democrats considered Reeves unpopular and were hoping to unseat him in the country’s reddest state in the union, and they spent $10 million to do it.
In the end, Democrats watched Reeves win a second term with similar election results from the 2019 race. He defeated Jim Hood, the state attorney general, 51% to 46%, four years ago.
Much like Reeves, Kentucky Democrat Andy Beshear (pictured below) won a second term by defeating GOP challenger Daniel Cameron, the state attorney general. Beshear defeated Cameron 52% to 47%.
Kentucky native Gary Bauer, who leads the Campaign for Working Families, says Cameron was fighting an uphill battle against Beshear, the son of a former governor who portrayed himself as a moderate Democrat.
“In every race down ticket, in every other statewide election, Republicans won every one of the seats,” Bauer tells AFN. “Beshear is the most popular Democrat in the state.”
In 2019, in his first political race, Cameron defeated Kentucky’s then-current attorney general, Greg Stumbo. He defeated Stumbo 57% to 42% just four years ago.
Stumbo won seven Kentucky counties in his 2019 defeat compared to 29 counties where Beshear won at least 50% of the vote four years later on Election Day.
