{"id":12349,"date":"2018-11-27T21:47:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T05:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12349"},"modified":"2018-11-27T21:50:08","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T05:50:08","slug":"republican-cindy-hyde-smith-wins-mississippi-governor-runoff-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12349","title":{"rendered":"Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith wins Mississippi runoff election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text \" data-elm-loc=\"1\"><span class=\"dateline\">JACKSON, Miss. \u2014<\/span>\u00a0Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican who was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/20\/us\/politics\/mississippi-senate-appointee-trump.html\">appointed to the Senate this year<\/a>, faces Mike Espy, a Democrat and former congressman, in a special election runoff on Tuesday after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/elections\/results\/mississippi-senate-special\">neither candidate won a majority<\/a>\u00a0on Election Day. The election was held to fill the seat of Senator Thad Cochran, who\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/05\/us\/politics\/thad-cochran-retire-senate.html\">retired earlier this year<\/a>\u00a0for health reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text \" data-elm-loc=\"1\">Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) was projected to win a racially charged runoff election here Tuesday night, overcoming a surprisingly strong challenge by Democratic opponent Mike Espy to become the state\u2019s first elected female U.S. senator.<\/p>\n<table class=\"eln-table eln-results-table\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th class=\"eln-header eln-name\">Candidate<\/th>\n<th class=\"eln-header eln-party\">Party<\/th>\n<th class=\"eln-header eln-votes\">Votes<\/th>\n<th class=\"eln-header eln-percent\">Pct.<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr class=\"eln-row\n            eln-hyde-smith-28529\n            eln-cindy-hyde-smith\n            eln-party-republican\n            eln-no-image\n\n            eln-winner\"><\/p>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-name eln-swatch eln-republican\"><span class=\"eln-name-wrap\"><span class=\"eln-name-display\">Cindy Hyde-Smith<span class=\"eln-incumbent-label\">*<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-party\"><span class=\"eln-party-display\">Republican<\/span><\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-votes\">474,471<\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-percent\">53.9<span class=\"eln-percent-sign\">%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"eln-row\n            eln-espy-27501\n            eln-mike-espy\n            eln-party-democrat\n            eln-no-image\n\n            eln-last-candidate\n\n            \"><\/p>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-name \"><span class=\"eln-name-wrap\"><span class=\"eln-name-display\">Mike Espy<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-party\"><span class=\"eln-party-display\">Democrat<\/span><\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-votes\">405,486<\/td>\n<td class=\"eln-cell eln-percent\">46.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p class=\"eln-note eln-precincts-reporting\"><span class=\"eln-total-votes\">879,957 votes,\u00a0<\/span>99% reporting\u00a0<span class=\"g-precinct-count\">(1,781 of 1,797 precincts)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"eln-note eln-key-note\"><span class=\"eln-incumbent-note\">*\u2009Incumbent<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"2\">Hyde-Smith\u2019s victory, coming after her comments about being willing to join a supporter on the front row of a public hanging, bolsters the Republican majority in the Senate and illustrates President Trump\u2019s ability to rally his supporters behind a struggling campaign.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"3\">\u201cWe have bonded, we have persevered, we have gotten through things,\u201d Hyde-Smith told a room of supporters just after receiving a congratulatory call from Trump. \u201cThe reason we won is because Mississippians know me, and they know my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"4\">Espy, who would have become the state\u2019s first African American senator since Reconstruction, ran the state\u2019s most competitive Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate in decades but fell short in his efforts to bring historic numbers of black voters to the polls.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"5\">Throughout the campaign, he tried to walk a fine line on matters of race, attempting to galvanize black voters in a state with a greater proportion of them than any other, while not alienating white voters, who turn out in disproportionately high numbers.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"6\">Espy, in a speech conceding the race, said he was proud of his campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JACKSON, Miss. \u2014\u00a0Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12352,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12349\/revisions\/12352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}