The nationalisation of local politics is changing the political rules in Louisiana and Mississippi
for the governorships of Mississippi and Louisiana will show whether, as a former House Speaker once said, “all politics is local”, or whether, in the days of Donald Trump, national partisanship supersedes everything and even local politics are not local any more. At stake is whether conservative Democrats can win statewide office in the Deep South.
In Mississippi, Jim Hood is the only Democrat holding statewide office, having been elected attorney-general four times. The incumbent governor is term-limited, so this race is open. Mr Hood has proposed an expansion of Medicaid and increased funding for the state’s roads. But he also looks like a much-loved Mississippi-born country-music singer, Conway Twitty. He and Mr Edwards are the inverse of “Republicans in name only”. They are Republicans in all but name.
Mr Trump is doing his best to consolidate this national trend. On the eve of the primary he held a big rally in Louisiana to turn out the white working-class vote, to great effect. In Louisiana the Republican candidate is a construction magnate and self-styled “conservative outsider” called Eddie Rispone who models himself on the president. He won the nomination by criticising his rival as inadequately Trumpist and says he will “do to Louisiana what Trump has done to America”.
If they are indeed characteristic of the nation, that may not bode well for Democrats in Republican states. In Louisiana’s jungle primary, Republicans enjoyed a landslide. Five of seven statewide officers from the party won in the first round. Republicans won a supermajority in the state Senate. Republicans in Mississippi also think they can increase their share in the state House to two-thirds.
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