Mississippi Runoff

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has faced controversy over recent remarks ahead of the runoff against Democrat Mike Espy.

JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi voters are deciding the final Senate race of 2018 Tuesday night, with appointed Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith defending her seat amid a storm of controversy over recent remarks about attending a “public hanging.”

Hyde-Smith, who succeeded former Sen. Thad Cochran earlier this year, is hoping to hold off a stiff special election challenge from Democrat Mike Espy, a former congressman and Clinton-era agriculture secretary who has inspired slim Democratic hopes of repeating the party’s miraculous Senate victory in Alabama last year.

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Espy, who is African-American, called Hyde-Smith’s “public hanging” comments a “black eye” for the state. Hyde-Smith ultimately apologized to “anyone offended” by her remarks, which she said were an exaggerated form of regard for a supporter. But the comments, which some viewed as connected to Mississippi’s history of lynching, brought unexpected scrutiny to Hyde-Smith during the runoff, putting Republicans on edge even in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.

An Espy victory would be a monumental upset, giving Democrats a capstone achievement to close out the midterm elections. He remains a serious underdog and needs massive turnout from Democratic voters — and for a substantial portion of reliably Republican voters to stay home — to cobble together a winning Democratic coalition in Mississippi. President Donald Trump visited the state Monday in an attempt to make sure GOP voters are engaged for the runoff.

“Don’t take any chances,” Trump implored supporters at the first of two rallies. “You have to vote. We cannot allow Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to erode [GOP control of the Senate] by winning the great state of Mississippi.”

A victory for Hyde-Smith would make her the first woman elected to represent Mississippi in the Senate, and it would cement Republicans’ Senate majority at 53 seats at the start of the next Congress in January.

Hyde-Smith and Espy are in a runoff because neither received a majority of the vote in a crowded race on November 6. The runoff wasn’t expected to be competitive — Republican candidates including Hyde-Smith collected an aggregate 58 percent of the vote four weeks ago, compared to 42 percent for Democrats. But Hyde-Smith’s controversial public hanging comment brought new scrutiny onto the race, which only grew after several major companies requested their donations to her campaign be refunded.

“There’s no doubt [Espy] got into this race knowing it was an uphill battle,” said Bobby Moak, the state Democratic Party chairman. “From what we’ve been seeing in the past week, it appears he’s closing the gap.”

Austin Barbour, a veteran Republican strategist who has managed statewide campaigns in Mississippi, said he thought Hyde-Smith should have apologized more quickly for the “public hanging” comment. She initially declined to apologize and largely avoided discussing the remark before offering an apology to “anyone offended” during the only debate between the candidates one week prior to Election Day.

“I know she said it, she regrets what she said and obviously that statement gave Espy a better chance to win,” Barbour said, though he added that he expected Hyde-Smith to win comfortably.

Barbour added that Trump’s two rallies in support of Hyde-Smith Monday would help ensure Republicans didn’t take the race for granted.

During his visit Monday night, Trump returned to the formula that helped him boost several red-state Republican Senate candidates to victory just a few weeks ago, bashing Espy as too liberal for the state and comparing him to national Democrats unpopular in Mississippi.

“The president is such a motivating factor for people in Mississippi who want to go out to vote, for both sides but obviously more for him than against him,” said Barbour. “[Trump] coming to the state the night before the election, there was no way for Espy to counter that.”

Media

No one mentioned CNN’s legal fight with the White House or new rules governing reporters’ behavior.

The White House on Tuesday held its first press briefing since attempting to revoke CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass — and it was almost like the entire drama, which led to the creation of new White House rules governing reporters’ behavior, never happened.

The briefing was a calm affair by the standards of President Donald Trump’s administration. Unlike many before it, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not bash the press or criticize specific journalists.

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And despite new rules barring follow-up questions at press conferences — the White House has not specified whether those apply to briefings and other less-formal media events — several reporters asked them without incident. In fact, there was no mention of the rules or the dust-up that led CNN to sue Trump earlier this month, leaving unanswered how the White House plans to enforce its efforts to police journalists’ etiquette.

Acosta was among those who tested the new rules Tuesday, making his return to the briefing room following the Nov. 7 incident that temporarily cost him his security badge, in which he briefly refused to let a White House aide take away his microphone as he attempted to ask Trump follow-up questions. A judge on Nov. 16 ordered Acosta’s press pass temporarily returned to him, and the White House permanently gave it back last week, in the process threatening that reporters who violate the new rules for press conferences would risk losing future access.

Toward the end of the briefing, Sanders called on Acosta. She side-stepped his initial question about whether the president would recommend that former campaign chief Paul Manafort fully cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“If I could ask a follow-up,” Acosta said, before asking about what he called a pattern of the president not believing assessments from his administration’s climate scientists and intelligence analysts. Sanders interrupted the question midway through, saying, “That’s not true,” though she allowed Acosta to finish.

“The president has faith in the intelligence community and certainly in the team that he has assembled around him,” Sanders said.

Acosta then asked an additional follow-up, pointing out that Trump has not fully accepted intelligence assessments about Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death.

“We haven’t seen definitive evidence come from our intelligence community that ties him directly to that,” Sanders said, contradicting reports from multiple news outlets.

Sanders then moved onto the next question.

Acosta was not the only one granted multiple questions. National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow and national security adviser John Bolton both took questions before Sanders, and though all three did their best to side-step several issues and avoid answering certain questions, they all allowed multiple reporters to ask additional questions.

If CNN’s demeanor in the briefing room was polite, the network did provide some pushback on-screen.

At one point during the briefing, CNN put a “Facts First” graphic on-screen, offering additional information to check Sanders on the administration’s climate change report. The step appeared to be a new one for the network, as broadcasters have wrestled with how to fact-check in real time incorrect or misleading statements by administration officials.

CNN did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

While CNN and Fox News aired the proceedings, MSNBC opted not to, instead going with standard White House coverage, including a live shot of a reporter just outside the briefing room.

An MSNBC spokesperson said that, given the pace of the day’s news, the network decided to monitor the briefing and report on any major developments afterward.