Mississippi’s govt race is upset after Elvis Presley’s COUSIN launches bid to fire incumbent

A Democratic cousin of Elvis Presley hopes the voters in the Mississippi gubernatorial election will be all shaken when he challenges GOP incumbent Tate Reeves.

Democrat Brandon Presley is a second cousin of the king, born a few days before the rock and roll legend passed away.

During his campaign, Brandon Presley often talks about government corruption, focusing on a multimillion-dollar welfare scandal that arose when current Republican Governor Tate Reeves was lieutenant governor involving football legend Brett Favre.

The race has not been polled since late April and showed Presley trailing 11 points despite Reeves having a low approval rating, according to Real clear politics.

Conservative Mississippi is tough territory for the Democrats, but the party sees an unusual opportunity this year to unseat first-term Governor Reeves.

They pin their hopes in November on a candidate with a legendary last name who has used his own riveting narrative to highlight the economic plight of working families in a state that has long been one of the poorest in America.

Presley, an elected member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor. He pushes for Medicaid to help financially strapped hospitals while telling voters about his own troubled childhood.

“I understand what working families go through in this state,” Presley told about 75 people at a restaurant in Grenada, a city on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.

The 45-year-old said he was just in third grade when his father was killed.

Presley’s mother raised him and his brother and sister in the small town of Nettleton, earning a modest wage in a garment factory.

In his childhood home, “you could see right through the floor into the earth,” he said, and his mother struggled to pay for water and electricity.

And let me tell you this plainly: If my name is put on the ballot in November, the names of families that have had their electricity cut off, who get up every day to work for whatever they can to help their children , to small children. entrepreneurs — your name will be on that November ballot,” he said.

Mississippi is one of only three states entering a gubernatorial race this year Kentucky And Louisiana.

All are places that have historically supported Republicans for statewide office, though Kentucky’s Democratic governor is seeking a second term.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, president of the Democratic Governors Association, described the three games as “away games,” but said Mississippi may be “the sleeper” — a state where the right Democrat could win.

That’s despite voters twice heavily supporting Donald Trump for president, the GOP who holds all state offices and has a supermajority in the legislature, and a Democrat who hasn’t won a Mississippi gubernatorial race so far this century.

Reeves, who faces two underfunded opponents in the Aug. 8 primary, has the advantage of an incumbent position: 31 governors of U.S. states or territories ran for re-election last year, losing only one.

The governor had about $9.4 million in his campaign fund at the end of May, far more than the $1.7 million Presley reported.

Republicans also say national Democrats’ enthusiasm for Presley’s bid could be a drawback.

Reeves, 49, was a suburban Jackson banker before getting his first statewide office 20 years ago.

He is campaigning on a record from cutting income taxes, raising teachers’ salaries, restrict access to abortion and banning gender-affirming medical care for people under the age of 18.

Reeves also casts this as an “us versus them” election, portraying Presley as part of a national Democratic operation far removed from the realities of life in Mississippi.

“My friends, this is a different gubernatorial campaign than we’ve ever seen before in our state because we’re not running against a local farmer, Mississippi Democrat. We’re up against a national liberal machine,” Reeves told more than 200 supporters at a campaign event in the Jackson suburb of Richland.

‘They are extreme. They are radical and mean.’

Reeves said outsiders view Mississippi with “contempt,” but the state has momentum.

“Are we going to let them stop us?” Reeves asked, and the audience replied, “No!”

“Are we going to allow them to conform Mississippi to California values?” Reeves asked. Again the answer was ‘No!’

Presley was 23 when he was elected mayor of Nettleton in 2001. During his second term as leader of the city of 2,000, he won the seat on the Northern District of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, a three-member group that regulates utilities. He will complete his fourth term this year.

While Presley campaigns, he combines blunt criticism of Reeves with gospel and bluegrass songs that cement the bond with his famous cousin without giving the impression that he’s gone in the wrong direction.

Text messages showed Reeves talking to Favre about getting state funds to build a volleyball arena at his alma mater, according to the Hattiesburg patriot.

In Grenada, Presley said a $100 million financial package that lawmakers and Reeves approved for hospitals this year was a “cheap, dollar-store clearance patch” when Medicaid expansion takes the state about $1 billion a year from the federal government. could yield.

Murphy said Presley’s style has won over backers. At an event that Presley and Murphy attended in New Jersey, they surpassed their fundraising goal.

“We have a great candidate. This guy is the real thing,” Murphy said. “If you listen to what he would do on his first day as governor, you say, ‘You know what? That’s exactly what Mississippi needs.”

Four years ago, Reeves won the governorship by defeating four-term Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood by 52 percent to 47 percent, with two lesser-known candidates in the race.

This year, one independent will be on the general election list. Republicans like their chances given state politics and Reeves’ history of five statewide wins: two for state treasurer, starting when he was 29; two for lieutenant governor; and one for the governor.

“Democrats are desperately trying to create a mirage when it comes to Mississippi,” said Republican Governors Association spokesman Courtney Alexander.

“The reality is that Brandon Presley is being bought and paid for by national Democrats, while Governor Reeves’ record of historically low unemployment, historically high graduation rates and substantial pay increases for Mississippi educators speaks for itself.”

About 38 percent of Mississippi residents are black — the highest percentage of any state — and black voters are vital for Democrats to have any chance of winning statewide.

Janie Houston, a retired kindergarten teacher who attended Presley’s event in Grenada, said some black voters may not bother to show up in November because Republicans have drawn legislative districts specifically to protect large majorities in the legislature.

“That’s the point of all this gerrymandering,” Houston said.

Democrats, she added, aren’t putting enough support behind candidates who didn’t vote to offset that advantage.