Today is Thursday, June 9, and if you’re reading this email, you’re probably wondering two things:
1. Why am I getting this newsletter when the Legislature isn’t in session?
2. What the hell happened to Michael Guest in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District race?
The answers to those two questions are actually related.
After the success of The Session newsletter this past legislative session, I wanted to continue to engage with readers in the personal way this newsletter allows me to do outside of a session.
State lawmakers are expected to conduct crucial hearings over the summer, state agencies are still implementing important policies and, now, two incumbent Republican congressmen are being forced into runoff elections.
You deserve a newsletter that can break down the news outside of the three months during the legislative session. Therefore, we are planning to publish The Session newsletter every other week while the Legislature is out of session.
If you have any ideas on how we can improve the newsletter or engage with all of you better, feel free to email me at taylor.vance@djournal.com.
What happened to Michael Guest?
But, let’s get into the shocking election results in the 3rd Congressional race in central Mississippi.
It was widely expected that U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo would get drawn into a runoff because of the large number of candidates in the 4th Congressional District on the Coast.
But it’s far more surprising that Guest, a former district attorney in Madison and Rankin counties, is being forced into runoff by Michael Cassidy, a former Navy pilot who has touted his support of former President Donald Trump.
So how in the world could a political newcomer with low name recognition force Guest into a runoff? Here’s how I broke it down and made sense of it:
1. Michael Cassidy had money.
Whenever a challenge is going up against an incumbent, they don’t always have access to money or donations, making their odds of success significantly slim.
We can look to the Republican primary in the 1st Congressional District as an example where incumbent Rep. Trent Kelly easily defeated a challenge from a DeSoto County Republican.
2. Cassidy had a message, and he stuck with it.
Cassidy repeatedly hammered Guest for voting in favor of establishing the Jan. 6 Commission to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Regardless of what you think about that message, voters found it receptive, particularly in rural counties.
3. Low voter turnout.
Overall, turnout was very poor, which isn’t uncommon in a primary election for midterms.
In this case the onus is on the incumbent to remind Republican voters to get out and vote on the day of the election. Instead, Cassidy was able to pounce on a low-interest race and convince GOP voters that they should vote against Guest.
4. Guest had a limited presence in the district leading up to the election.
This is probably the most important point that can’t be understated enough. The prevailing view is that Guest took the race for granted and assumed that his prior name recognition would be enough to win the GOP nomination.
But the problem is when you have an opponent willing to spend over $200,000 of personal money on a Mississippi race, you can’t take anything for granted.
A runoff between Cassidy and Guest will take place on June 28. Scores of new campaign dollars are expected to flood into the state to pump out negative campaign ads.
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