Northeast Mississippi: 1999, 2003, 2007
Northeast Mississippi is often considered the ‘swing’ portion of the state in statewide elections. And it is really one of the last areas of the state where white voters will consider Democrats. But as statewide elections have gone from a narrow win for Ronnie Musgrove to a narrow win for Haley Barbour over Musgrove to a blowout for Barbour, you’ll notice considerable change in that part of the state (and not much elsewhere really). Essentially, as Republicans have strengthened their hand statewide, Northeast Mississippi is looking a lot more Republican. I imagine the two have much in common.
Below are maps from the 1999, 2003, and 2007 gubernatorial elections. First, you need to reverse the colors in your mind. In this case, Democrats are red and Republicans are blue (as it once was). Then you can see just how much elections have changed in the region over the course of three elections.
Of the 16 counties in the region, all but Calhoun and Pontotoc went for Musgrove, of Batesville, in 1999. In 2003, Musgrove held on to win just Benton, Chickasaw, Clay, Marshall, Monroe, and Prentiss counties. In 2007, Monroe flipped to Barbour meaning he won 11 of the 16 counties, compared to just two of 16 for the GOP in 1999.
Of the five counties not won by Barbour in ’07, Prentiss is the only one without a high black voting population. The home of Travis Childers is really one of the last true, old-fashion yellow dog counties in the state. (John McCain would carry the county in the 2008 by 43 points by the way).
Here is a chart of vote totals in the 16-county region for Democratic candidates for governor during the three election cycles:
John Arthur Eaves actually did better than Musgrove in five counties in the region. I suppose that may have had something to do with disdain for Musgrove over the state flag. And two counties actually became more Democratic over time (Chickasaw and Pontotoc), but 13 saw drops in the percentage given to Democrats, and very strong drops at that in Alcorn, Benton, Lafayette, and Marshall.
In 1999 and 2003, the question of who was going to win the governor’s mansion- and who would carry Northeast Mississippi- was up in the air. In 2007- and most likely this November- they are not. As we have talked about, Johnny DuPree has his worse showing in this part of the state in the primaries. It was always going to be difficult, but starting in the position he does makes it even more complicated.
But if trends continue, Northeast Mississippi- like the entire state- is not going to be considered ‘in play’ as much as it is strongly Republican at the gubernatorial level.
Related post: The Importance of Northeast Mississippi
It is weird that the media decided that Democrats would be blue and the Republicans red. In most countries, red is the color for the leftish party while blue is the more right wing party.
The color red being used for Republicans and blue being used for Democrats is part of the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential election. Before 2000 the colors were sometimes alternated. But the highly contentious nature of the 2000 election outcome kind of cemented the red for Republicans, blue for Democrats idea in people’s minds since that was the color arrangement used in those years.
I think the maps used by Brett in this post came from uselectionatlas.org. That site uses the reverse color setup because the maps there already used blue for Republicans and red for Democrats and Dave Leip, the owner of the site said it would just be too much work to change all of the existing maps just because of one election.
It was David Leip’s site http://www.uselectionatlas.org. Great resource if you’re look for all that data.