Cindy Hyde-Smith wins Mississippi senate unoff

There was really no contest, although it was closer than it should have been.

President Trump late Tuesday congratulated incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith for handily defeating an insurgent challenge by Democrat Mike Espy in Mississippi's contentious special election runoff to become the first woman ever elected to Congress from the state.

Hyde-Smith, 59, is an ardent supporter of Trump who was appointed earlier this year by Mississippi's governor to fill retiring Sen. Thad Cochran's seat. She will finish out the remaining two years of Cochran's term in the deep-red state that went for Trump by nearly 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.

"Congratulations to Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on your big WIN in the great state of Mississippi. We are all very proud of you!” Trump tweeted.

With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Hyde-Smith had 446,927 votes to Espy's 374,880 -- a commanding margin of 54.4 percent to 45.6 percent, according to state election officials. The race marks the final midterm contest of 2018.

“I want everybody to know, no matter who you voted for today, I’m gonna always represent every Mississippian,” Hyde-Smith said at her victory party late Monday night. "Being on that MAGA-wagon, the Make American Great Again bus, we have bonded, we have persevered, we have gotten through things, we were successful today."

Hyde-Smith's win gives Republicans more leeway to ensure the confirmation of Trump's federal judicial and Cabinet nominees that require Senate approval and strengthens the party's chances of holding the majority in 2020.

"She has my prayers as she goes to Washington to unite a very divided Mississippi," Espy said in his concession speech.

This brings the Senate total for Republicans to 54, a critical number given the sometimes ify voting of Susan Collins, Lisa Ann Murkowski, making them less of a factor, that should mean clean saling for Trump judicial nominees and a possible Supreme Court pick if a retirement occurs.

Democrat Fraud in the 2018 Election - Investigate and Expose Before 2020

Hard to believe that two weeks after the 2018 midterms, races are still be decided by "found votes", votes that exceed registered people to produce that number, and Republican candidates announced as winners were suddenly losers as more ballots were discovered. This isn't a new occurrence, it happens time to time in election history. Democrats who have decried voter-ID (for obvious reasons), shout their mantra of "count every vote", while it's countered with "count every LEGAL vote", have spread across news stories coast to coast.


No other hotbed compares to the confusion than the usual suspects of Broward and Dade County Florida, but specifically Broward County. Current elections supervisor Brenda Snipes is under fire for what appears to be the largest example of incompetence in the history of elections. It's not the first time for Snipes either. Example.

"For 15 years, Snipes has served as Broward County’s elections chief, with mixed results. Long lines and vote counts that continued long after polls closed marred elections in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2016 and, of course, this year.

Among other issues:

-- A court ruled she had broken election law when she destroyed ballots from the 2016 election 12 months after it, instead of the 22 months required by federal law.
Broward elections supervisor illegally destroyed ballots in Wasserman Schultz race, judge rules

-- A medical marijuana amendment was left off some ballots in 2016.

-- Election results in the 2016 primary were posted on the elections office’s website before polls closed, another violation of election law.

-- In 2012, almost 1,000 uncounted ballots were discovered a week after the election

-- In 2004, some 58,000 mail-in ballots were not delivered to voters, leaving election officials to scramble to send new ones."

Now after numerous starts and stops and a failure to properly submit results, and two law-suits who ruled against her, one, for violating Florida law, she is again at the end of a complete screw up the recount of Florida.

Now that the counting is done and both DeSantis and Scott have come out victorious, the looming question remains is how to prevent Democrats from pulling the same election-games in 2020. I have no doubt that Florida election results would have been very different had conservative media, bloggers, activist not descended on Broward County - and even Palm Beach counties and put eyes on what was going up.

More specifically Broward County where an astounding 80,000 votes "appeared" just days after the election where Rick Scott's lead of 55,000 was reduced to 12,000 vote, which is nearly mathematically impossible.

This "magic" happened all around the country in the days after the election. True, some expansion of votes is due to absentee and mail-in ballots, but as we saw in Florida some of it is also because of malfeasance, and just plain cheating. I believe that if it had not be for the expanded focus on South Florida by media, the GOP of Florida and activists the end result may have been much different.

That needs to be fine-tuned as we move to 2020 so the Democratic Party is on notice that it won't be tolerated, it will be exposed and we will fight back.

Democrat's Midterm Generic Ballot advantage Bleeding - Down to One Point

Whatever the poll, the fact is that Democrats are losing their advantage, once in the double digits. For all the analysis, two factors can't be ignored on election day. First, Trump and his ability to command his supporters to show up and take over the polls, and two, well he's Trump. Remember in 2016 this was the guy who according to most polls was toast and couldn't win, and Hillary couldn't lose. Who is living in the woods now?

Some good, but generally stock analysis and wisdom here. But Trump broke the mold on elections in 2016 and so much stock analysis went into the crapper. Another point, and it's almost never that the party out of power was this far off the mark going into the midterms.