Defeated MAGA senator is trying to ‘intimidate’ MS victor: expert

The American South has a long history of intimidating non-white voters, and that history may be in effect right now as Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) refuses to concede her Senate race to the Democrat who defeated her, District Attorney Scott Colom.

"I don’t know Cindy Hyde-Smith and how she may react to this personally, whether she understands the math and whether she’s being stubborn or recalcitrant or truly trying to get every vote counted, which would be fine and, I know, a part of the process when the race is very, very close," Democratic strategist Dan Kanninen told MS NOW on Wednesday. "I do think in the South in particular, there is just this history of using tactics to intimidate voters into not participating. And we talked about this the other day with the affidavit ballots, where they use Experian credit data to put people on an inactive list. With the idea being that when you show up and you’re a Black voter, you think you’re active, you’re on the wrong list, then maybe you go home because it seems not worth it to do an affidavit ballot."

He added, "And everything from [Attorney General] Todd Blanche’s saber-rattling to, I think, the elongation of this kind of long, drawn-out process when it’s [clear who] the winner is, is part of at least the instinct about the strategy: to put up barriers, cast doubt on the validity of elections and ultimately keep folks at home and not participate in these elections."

Republican strategist Stuart Stevens also commented on Wednesday that Sen. Hyde-Smith is behaving poorly by refusing to concede to Colom.

"Look, Ole Miss played Georgia Saturday night, and they were 42 to 7 behind with two minutes to go, and they had a better chance than Cindy Hyde-Smith to win. This thing is done," Stevens, who is from Jackson, told CNN. "It should be called. It's a disservice to the state not to call it, because he needs to be up in Washington doing all the briefings and orientation that senators do."

"If she were to win 90 percent of the ballots outstanding, she still would lose," he added, pointing out that "something remarkable has happened here. I think it's interesting to me that Scott's family hasn't gotten enough attention. You know, his grandmother was a civil rights worker in Ripley, Mississippi, and now her grandson is going to be the first African American [senator] since Reconstruction. His father was a Reagan guy who ran for state treasurer as a Republican in Mississippi in the 1980s, which is when I first met him."

Writing for AlterNet prior to Colom's victory, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich argued that Colom had figuratively won if he did not literally win before the official result was declared.

"Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t yet won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race," Reich wrote. "The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from Mississippi since …1881."

He added, "We’ll probably know by Friday. It will depend on a process playing out in election offices across Mississippi’s 82 counties, where local officials are receiving and examining absentee and provisional ballots. As of Monday morning, Colom’s lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith had grown to nearly 2,600 votes."

Ultimately, Reich noted, "Colom and his Black supporters have not ignored the significance of his candidacy as a Black man. He ended his campaign with an ad set at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was gunned down in 1963 in his own driveway, dying in front of his wife and children."

Colom's quote was, “It’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice to gain the ballot. What was important to me about that ad is we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story. We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”

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