Buried in a story today by The Clarion-Ledger’s Ana Radalet is an intriguing question: How many new Democratic voters will Mississippi gain due to Louisiana evacuees? One also has to wonder how many “red” voters the GOP is going to lose on the Gulf Coast due to the terrible responses to the hurricane.
But as the months go by and it remains difficult to return home, many Louisianans now living in Mississippi will register to vote in their adopted state. That would mean an increase of voters in some places like Jackson and Hattiesburg that have large amounts of Louisiana evacuees. It also means Mississippi, considered one of the nation’s greatest “red” states for its increasing loyalty to the Republican Party, may see an increase in Democratic voters.
One of them may be Donald Theard, 44, a construction worker from New Orleans, who has found work in Mississippi and plans to move into a FEMA trailer he wants to place on land he’s inherited in Florence.
“There’s nothing to return to (New Orleans’) 9th Ward for,” Theard said.
Hinds County Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn and Rankin County Circuit Clerk Carol Swilley said they haven’t seen a rise in voter registrations, at least not yet. But Mississippi’s political season isn’t in full swing yet – the qualifying deadline for candidates is Wednesday.
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The other thing that frustrates me about stories like this is that they never mention that Mississippi is already increasingly going “blue” — that is, our younger people under 30 are voting anti-Republican at greater rates already than in other southern states, and in dramatic fashion. How does that jibe with Radalet’s “factual” statement that Mississippi’s loyalty to the GOP is “increasing”? Read the JFP story about the vital news that other Mississippi media ignored in the 2004 elections. Then, ask yourself how it is that “objective” mainstream media have pointedly ignored this story?
#134702 | Author: DonnaLadd | Date: Feb 26 2006
The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
