Reeves Wins Republican Nod, Will Face Presley In November

Gov. Tate Reeves won the Republican nomination for governor with almost 75% of the vote on Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected.

With 92% of the vote in on Tuesday night, opponent Dr. John Witcher had about 18% of the vote and David Hardigree claimed about 8%.

The incumbent governor will face Democratic candidate Brandon Presley Nov. 7 general election. The Republican governor has focused his campaign on what he calls “strong conservative values.”

“Conservative policies work, and we’re proving it every single day right here in Mississippi,” he told the press in July.

Reeves touts the unemployment rate, which is now at a historic low of about 3.1% (The labor-force participation rate, which measures the percentage of working-age Mississippians in the labor force, is also at historic lows, however). He also touted rising test scores in schools and the large pay raise teachers received when Reeves signed the START Act into law in 2022.

“This is not an accident; this a result of good decisions made by conservative leaders,” the governor said at the Neshoba County Fair.

Presley, a public service commissioner for the Northern District of the Mississippi, blames Reeves for a raft of hospital closures, layoffs and cutbacks statewide; he cites the governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid. Mississippi is one of 10 states that has yet to expand Medicaid.

“He’s fiddling while our hospitals are burning to the ground, and he doesn’t care,” Presley said at the Neshoba County Fair.

Instead of Medicaid expansion, Reeves has proposed reforming the state’s certificate-of-needs laws to foster more competition and suggested Mississippians get “better, more higher-paying jobs” to have access to health care.

If elected, Reeves wants to axe the income tax, while Presley wants to eliminate the grocery tax and reduce car tag fees. Mississippi is one of three states that has a full tax rate on groceries, with the highest grocery tax in the nation.

Presley says he is more aligned with working-class Mississippians and that Reeves “doesn’t have a clue as to what people in Mississippi are struggling with.”

“I understand where working people are in Mississippi,” the Democratic candidate said at the Neshoba County Fair on July 28.

Presley mentioned the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families scandal, which occurred when Reeves was lieutenant governor, and said the Republican hadn’t proposed an ethics reform to prevent the misspending of funds. Though investigators have not accused the Republican governor of a crime related to the TANF scandal, the Democratic candidate accused the incumbent last month of being “knee-deep in the largest public corruption scandal in state history” and said he wants to “clean up state government to put corrupt politicians where they belong—in jail.”

Presley seemed to oppose the ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors in remarks to the press in June. In addition to banning gender-affirming surgeries, which were not provided for minors in Mississippi to begin with, the law banned common treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.

“I’ll leave parents to control the health care of their children, period,” Presley said at a Mississippi Press Association event in Flowood, Miss., on June 16.

But the candidate has since said he would not repeal the law if elected, nor an earlier 2021 law banning transgender children and college students from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity.

“Tate Reeves knows that I won’t work to overturn these laws, and this issue is settled in Mississippi, but he’s busy pushing the same old false political attacks to cover up his career of corruption,” Presley told Mississippi Today in July. “As a man of faith who is pro-life, I’ve never once had an issue disagreeing with my party when they’re wrong, so I’ll be clear: I don’t think boys should be playing against girls, and girls shouldn’t be playing against boys. I don’t think minors should be getting surgery to change their gender.”

So far, Reeves has not agreed to a debate with Presley.

The general election is on Nov. 7.

Voters should bring an accepted form of voter ID to the polls or may have to cast an affidavit ballot; those without an accepted form of ID can obtain a free voter ID from their county circuit clerk’s office.

For more on elections and voting, visit mfp.ms/voting.