The special election for Mississippi’s open Senate seat has become "a bare-knuckle brawl infused with ugly racial politics,” in the deep red state, according to Politico.
Republican candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith had expected a relatively sure victory, which would make her the state’s first female senator, but a recent comment she made about attending a public hanging has become a rallying cry for Democrats and other supporters of Democratic candidate Mike Espy, who would be the state’s first black senator since Reconstruction if he wins.
Earlier this month, Hyde-Smith, who is white, said at a campaign event that she would be “on the front row” for a public hanging, a remark that drew condemnation due to Mississippi’s history of lynchings. Over 600 people were lynched in the state from 1877 to 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, more than any other state.
The NAACP described the comment as “sick,” and Espy told CNN that although he didn’t think her comment was racist, he did find it “tone deaf,” and warned that such remarks “are hurtful to millions of Mississippians who are people of good will.”
Hyde-Smith defended the remark in a statement to The New York Times.
“In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement,” she said. “In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”
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