In announcing his bid for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Chris McDaniel set up what is sure to be the most interesting and provocative primary of this election season.
McDaniel, as expected, said he is running to knock out incumbent Delbert Hosemann, derided by the challenger as too moderate or even too liberal to be a Republican leader in conservative Mississippi.
It did not take long for Hosemann’s camp to join the battle, making it clear that Republican voters will have much to chew on before the primary in August.
After McDaniel’s announcement Monday in Jackson, a Hosemann campaign adviser sniped in a press release, “The least effective politician in the state with the largest ego is running again.”
The press release noted that Hosemann, as secretary of state, set up Mississippi’s successful voter ID program. And in his first term as lieutenant governor, he held off calls to eliminate the state income tax in favor of less extreme reductions that still produced the largest tax cut in Mississippi history.
McDaniel, as he has been for a decade, is the clear red-meat conservative. According to the Mississippi Today website, he told listeners Monday that he will support tax cuts, tax eliminations, parents’ rights, lobbying reform and eliminating “woke culture” in the state’s schools and universities. He opposes Medicaid expansion and will work to defeat liberalism, whether it comes from Democrats or Republicans.
Hosemann’s people also noted that McDaniel has whiffed in his efforts to win statewide elections. He is 0-for-2 in U.S. Senate contests, although he surprised everyone in 2014 by leading entrenched incumbent Thad Cochran in that year’s primary, but he lost the runoff when Cochran’s team recruited Black voters who had not cast a ballot in the first vote.
McDaniel fared poorly, though, in the 2018 U.S. Senate special election, held after Cochran’s death. President Donald Trump endorsed agriculture commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith in that race, and she went on to win. She then got elected to a full six-year term in 2020.
So, can McDaniel beat Hosemann? Maybe. But it still seems unlikely.
While McDaniel’s rigid conservative politics fits well in Mississippi, he will still be an underdog against an incumbent who has won his last four statewide elections, including the first three as state treasurer. Hosemann does have a record of achievement, while McDaniel has been frozen out of influence in the Senate, first by Tate Reeves when he was lieutenant governor and now by Hosemann.
McDaniel’s 2014 ambush of Cochran indicates he has support in the state. But he has not been able to follow up those results at the statewide level.
It’s rare that Mississippi voters reject a prominent incumbent, and it’s hard to envision that they’ll do so in this particular primary. But Monday’s commentary indicates that voters at least will enjoy the jousting in this race.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
