Prospective Presley County Flips
by Alex Pastor
November 4, 2023
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In an inelastic state like Mississippi a county flip is hard to come by, but there are some areas Brandon Presley can look to expand. The map on the left shows the best Democratic performance in the two close-ish races late last decade, Mike Espy in the 2018 Senate special election and Jim Hood in the 2019 Governor's race. These two each overperformed in this Trump +16 state, and between them won five more counties than President Biden. Panola and Layfayette in the northwest, Lowndes and Chickasaw in the northeast, and Madison in central Mississippi. Even with this, each lost by more than five points.
Will Brandon Presley be able to hold these and flip any additional counties this time around? The first place to look would be in his district on the Public Services Commission, where he consistently puts up incredible performances . 4/5 of the flips are here in the north/northeast of the state with Panola and Chickasaw carried by both and Layayette, home to Ole Miss, was carried by Hood and Lowndes was carried by Espy.
There are a trio of vertical counties, Grenada, Yalobusha and Montgomery, that Hood came within five points of flipping in his race four years ago that will be . These counties were carried by Trump by 12, 14 and 16 respectively. Winston county, below the Golden Triangle, of Lowndes, Clay and Oktibbeha counties, also fell to Hood by less than five points. These are not surefire flips by any means, but three of the four have African American populations at or above 40% which might be enough to overcome the racial polarization of the state.
Outside his northern district, Madison was carried by Hood in 2019. A suburban county of Jackson, it has the highest per capita income in the the state with it being the only county above the national average. The county has gone from R+30 to R+12 in the last twenty years making things easier for Presley here. In the southeast, Forrest, like Forrest Gump is notoriously named after the Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the KKK, has not voted for a national Democratic ticket since FDR. The two Democrats they did back in that time were Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. Having said this, it only backed Trump by 11 points in 2020. Hattiesburg, in Forrest, is the home to Southern Mississippi University, and could follow Lafayette in flipping another county with a college town. The time might be right for a Democrat to carry Forrest again.
Pivot Point has this race rated as Likely Republican, but there are likely to be some county flips with most, if not all, of them shifting left. Beyond the five Hood/Espy flipped from Biden between the two of them, Yalobusha, Grenada and Forest are the most likely to flip with Montgomery and Winston being slightly less likely. It wouldn't be a shocking result to flip all five, but getting beyond this would see Presley outrunning the best performance of two good Democratic candidates by more than 5% in an inelastic state. That would be a good night for Presley by any measure.
P.S. - Not likely to flip, but it'll be interesting to see the margin in Lee county with Nettleton, Brandon Presley's hometown, and Tupelo, Elvis's home town. Does the family name help close the margin?
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