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When Mike Espy lost his U.S. Senate special runoff election in 2018, one has to contemplate what the outcome would have been had more Black voters turned out. Espy was well-known statewide. He previously served as U.S. representative for Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District from 1987 to 1993. He later became the first African American and the first person from the Deep South to serve as U.S. secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration. In the 2018 special runoff election, Espy lost to Cindy Hyde-Smith 53.6% to 46.4%, a margin of about 7.2 percentage points (roughly 68,000 votes).
Mississippi is a tough state for any Black candidate to win a statewide election. It has some of the highest structural barriers to voting in the nation, making it harder for people of color to navigate the bureaucracy when attempting to cast a vote. Analysts describe Mississippi as an extreme case of racially polarized voting, where white voters will systematically back the candidate opposed by Black voters. Espy did not clear his own stated goal of 35% Black turnout largely because of the structural suppression, chronic low-turnout patterns and the limits of a midterm, off-cycle runoff in a deeply Republican state.
The restrictive election rules can be hard for Black voters to overcome in any state, not just in Mississippi. Unfortunately, the lack of motivation and apathy by infrequent Black voters may be even harder to overcome. Too often, Black voters will deem a contest as unwinnable; therefore, the motivation to turn out and vote doesn’t exist for them. After the 2018 election, members of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus later said there was enthusiasm in some Black communities (especially the Delta), but also concern that excitement was not uniform or intense enough to drive truly exceptional Black turnout numbers statewide.
This lack of “uniform excitement” is not always related to voter suppression. Espy’s 2018 Black turnout share (32.5%) was lower than the 2012 Barack Obama peak (36%-37%). Obama’s presence on the ballot in 2012 energized Black turnout in Mississippi, reaching historical levels. In 2018, it was a different story. There was no Black presidential candidate, no national “first Black president” moment and a lower-salience special runoff; as a result, enthusiasm was weaker despite Espy himself being a history-making candidate. Understanding what Mike Espy as U.S. senator would mean to the Black community was the motivation that made Republican white voters automatically turn out and vote for his opponent. The same understanding should have automatically motivated Black voters to turn out and support Espy. This is true regardless of whether Obama is on the ballot. Given that Obama and Espy shared the same political ideology, which would best serve Black communities, that should have been the common denominator and motivating factor for high voter turnout for both candidates. There should never be an “enthusiasm gap” with the stakes being so high when the election outcome does not benefit people of color.
In this year’s midterm election, Texas has the potential to flip its U.S. Senate seat blue. In an encouraging sign leading into the midterm election, the Democratic candidate scored a major upset in a special election runoff for state Senate District 9, a district that President Trump won by 17 points in 2024. But will the winner of the Democratic primary election between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state legislator James Talarico for the U.S. Senate run into the same “enthusiasm gap” problem that hurt Mike Espy and Beto O’Rourke in their general elections? Low turnout among Black voters is not all attributed to Republican voter suppression tactics. Beto O’Rourke lost the 2018 Texas U.S. Senate race to Ted Cruz by approximately 215,000 votes (50.9% to 48.3%).
Because the margin of victory was so narrow, even a modestly higher turnout among infrequent Democratic-leaning voters could have changed the outcome of the election in O’Rourke’s favor. O’Rourke’s coalition depended on big enough wins in urban and diverse counties to offset Cruz’s strength in small rural counties. Will a significant number of Black voters maintain an “it won’t matter” attitude and not support Jasmine Crockett in either the primary or general elections? If James Talarico wins the Democratic primary, will Black voters who supported Jasmine Crockett in the primary election decide to stay home rather than support Talarico in the general election? Talarico supporters have raised questions about whether Crockett would make a strong statewide candidate and whether Talarico could win over more Trump voters.
Will supporters who voted for Talarico in the primary vote for Crockett in the general election? Mark Jones, a fellow in political science at the Baker Institute and a political science professor at Rice University, told Newsweek that there is little difference between Crockett and Talarico in terms of policy and both have high favorability among Democrats. There is too much on the line at the national level that the voters needed to defeat the Republican candidate can ill afford to stay home in either the primary or general elections. Regardless of whether it’s Crockett or Talarico, Black voters need to show up in historic levels.
Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization TRB: The Reconciled Body and author of the book “God Bless Our Divided America.”
Source: Published without changes from Washington Informer Newspaper
