Gov. Tate Reeves won’t be pleased with a political opinion column that just came out on the Mississippi Today website. It calls him one of the most unpopular governors in America and reviews a long list of possible challengers when he seeks a second term in 2023.
But let’s slow down a bit. The column, by Adam Ganucheau, was written a year before any votes are cast in the governor’s race. It is greatly premature to put the governor’s chances in doubt while overlooking the fact that he has won all five of his prior statewide contests — and that Mississippi is still a solidly Republican state.
Mississippi Today cites an April story on the Morning Consult website that listed the poll standings of all governors. Reeves was in the bottom 10 with rates of 49% approval and 41% disapproval.
It’s certainly fair to say that the governor has his detractors. Many Republicans were angered by his Covid-19 precautions during the earliest days of the pandemic. And many in the GOP’s political class just don’t get along with him. They haven’t forgotten his hardball tactics as lieutenant governor.
Potential Republican challengers, according to the column, include House Speaker Philip Gunn, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Secretary of State Michael Watson and even former state Rep. Robert Foster, who ran third in the 2019 GOP primary.
Among Democrats, the strongest challenge would come from Brandon Presley, a longtime member of the Public Service Commission who is moderate, pro-life and pro-Second Amendment. Given that background, it is a bit of a surprise that Democrats still claim him.
The true wild card would be if a decent independent candidate jumps into the race and actually gets some votes. The column mentions possibilities like Bill Waller Jr., who took Reeves to a runoff in 2019; Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker; Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs and Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill.
If that happens, and no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two general election finishers advance to a final runoff due to a voter-approved change to the Constitution in 2020. In this scenario, Mississippi Today says, the third-place finisher’s supporters would flow to whomever is running against Reeves.
Could any of this really happen? Maybe. But it still seems unlikely. The last two incumbent governors, Phil Bryant and Haley Barbour, easily won second terms. Has Reeves messed up so badly that he’s put his re-election in danger?
To view this from the opposite direction: Why would Republican challengers risk losing their current seat instead of biding their time for four years? For all of Presley’s achievements, how many Republican voters are so mad at Reeves that they’ll turn on him at the ballot box? And what are the chances of a serious independent candidate performing strongly enough on Election Day to force a runoff?
A lot of things would have to go wrong for Reeves for anything like this to happen. He may be worried about all this talk, but he is a Republican governor in a Republican state, and in 2023 he will run from a position of strength.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
