There were two surprises in Mississippi’s congressional primaries Tuesday, both on the Republican side.
One is that 3rd District Rep. Michael Guest, a two-term incumbent, trailed challenger Michael Cassidy by about 300 votes and has been forced into a June 28 runoff.
The other is that six-term 4th District Rep. Steven Palazzo, who has been the focus of an ethics investigation for more than a year, led all challengers and has advanced to the runoff.
Guest, whose district includes Pike, Lincoln, Walthall and Lawrence counties, did well in the population base around Jackson. But Cassidy ran strongly in many rural counties of the district, which runs from McComb northeast to Starkville.
Guest outpolled Cassidy by 2,100 votes in Rankin and Madison counties, where he had been the district attorney, along with a small sliver of Hinds County. But Guest won only eight of the district’s 20 other counties, while Cassidy won 12.
Given that Mississippi voters tend to re-elect their Washington incumbents, it seems likely that Guest’s vote to create a special congressional commission to investigate the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol played a decisive role in Tuesday’s results.
Cassidy focused his campaign on this, calling Guest a RINO — Republican in Name Only. And he had help from a former data specialist for President Trump. Apparently it worked.
In the 4th District, Palazzo won nine of the 12 counties to lead his five challengers. He advanced to the runoff against Jackson County (Pascagoula) Sheriff Mike Ezell, whose home county gave him nearly one third of his vote total and propelled him to a second-place finish.
Palazzo became vulnerable when the House Ethics Committee received allegations that the congressman had improperly spent campaign money and congressional money. The group that filed the complaint said recently it suspects that the Ethics Committee will neither clear Palazzo nor take action against him.
Palazzo’s office has said from the beginning that the allegations were politically motivated. Still, even the suspicion of misspending money can derail any political career. So Palazzo should be pretty pleased with his performance Tuesday, when he led with 32% of the vote in spite of the ethics case.
The runoff prospects for both incumbents are unclear. Turnout was extremely light for Tuesday’s primaries — just 48,000 voters in the 3rd District and 50,000 in the 4th — and history shows that primary voters tend to be the most committed and politically aware.
The question is whether that history holds true for the runoff. A lower turnout could favor the two challengers if voters who recognize the name of their incumbent congressmen skip a visit to the polls.
Cassidy appears to have struck a nerve against Guest, while Ezell’s law enforcement background could help him against Palazzo.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
