Cindy Hyde-Smith Wins Mississippi Senate Runoff As Donation Refund Requests Pile Up

Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won the contentious runoff election for the Mississippi Senate race Tuesday, beating Democratic opponent Mike Espy.

After her victory was confirmed, President Donald Trump, who held a rally in Mississippi on Monday to campaign on her behalf, congratulated the newly elected senator on Twitter. “Congratulations to Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on your big WIN in the Great State of Mississippi. We are all very proud of you!” he wrote.

Trump also called Hyde-Smith following her victory. "He said you have been through a storm, and you have survived it. You have survived it with grace," she said.

Although Hyde-Smith’s Senate campaign should have been in the headlines for all the right reasons, given that she made history by being the first woman from Mississippi to get appointed to Congress by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant for the seat vacated by longtime GOP Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April because of failing health, it was tainted with hints of racism and voter suppression.

Given that her opponent, Espy, was an African American man, it was understandable why people were troubled after watching Hyde-Smith make discriminatory comments and make light of the history of violence against black people.

“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” she was heard saying in a video that surfaced during her campaign. In another video, she joked about making voting “just a little more difficult” for the “liberal folks,” Time reported.

Although she initially refused to apologize for her comments, she eventually gave a limited apology in the final weeks of her campaign, saying that her “public hanging” comment was “an exaggerated expression of regard” for a fellow cattle rancher and that the remark was “twisted” for political reasons and used as a “weapon” against her. When she was asked by reporters after her win whether she regretted any of the comments she made in the past, she simply said that as a "cowgirl", she was making Western movies references which was taken out of context. "You got to roll with the punches," she said.

Owing to controversies surrounding her campaign, Charles Johnson, owner of San Francisco Giants, asked for his political donation of $2,700 to be refunded hours before the Mississippi election results were going to be declared.

“I would like to provide important context related to my political donation to Cindy Hyde-Smith,” Johnson said in a statement released by his lawyer, Joe Cotchett, Mercury News reported. “I was not aware of the controversy surrounding Hyde-Smith when I made the donation. I strongly condemn any form of racism and I have asked for my contribution to be returned. My political donations are my own personal donations, which have no affiliation with the Giants or any company.”

Johnson donated to Hyde-Smith’s campaign Nov. 20, days after the racist video scandal broke. The San Francisco Giants owner was only the latest in the list of entities who asked Hyde-Smith to return their financial contributions to her campaign. The list includes big companies like Google, Walmart, AT&T and Pfizer.

Regardless of the controversial win, Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, told USA Today it was another historic moment for Mississippi.

“Mississippi was one of the last two states to have never elected a woman to Congress," Walsh said. “While Cindy Hyde-Smith got Mississippi out of that undistinguished club when she was appointed, there still had never been a woman elected, so this is another milestone for the state of Mississippi."

With the conclusion of Mississippi’s election, the Senate races of 2018 were wrapped up, giving the Republicans a 53-47 lead next session. Also, with Hyde-Smith’s win, a record 23 women will be serving in the Senate.