Thompson secures new term in special election
Thompson defeated his challenger, Brady Davis, during Tuesday's primary election. Following a redistricting that mandated the election, District 16 covers portions of Chickasaw, Lee, Monroe and Pontotoc counties.
'I'm feeling like it is time to make things happen for Northeast Mississippi and we are already on the way,' Thompson said. 'I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the people of District 16. I am deeply honored. This victory does not belong to me. It belongs to the neighbors who opened up their door for me. It is about the people.'
District-wide, Thompson secured 1,325 votes (79%) to Davis' 348 votes (21%) according to unofficial results provided by circuit court clerks in Lee, Chickasaw, Monroe and Pontotoc counties.
With no Republican or third-party challengers, Thompson secured his seat for a new term. This will be Thompson's third term. His second was cut short by this special election, which was forced by the redistricting.
In Chickasaw County, Thompson beat out Davis by securing 62 votes to Davis' six. In Lee County, where the bulk of the electorate lives, Thompson received 1,109 votes to Davis' 288. In Monroe County, Thompson secured 110 votes while Davis received 17, and in Pontotoc County, Thompson earned 44 votes while Davis tallied 37.
Voter turnout was lean, with the lowest in Pontotoc County showing just 4.4% of eligible voters taking part in the election. Chickasaw County saw an almost 19% turnout, Lee County had a 12% turnout and Monroe County had a 9% turnout.
With the dust settled, Thompson said he again wants to focus on healthcare, education and infrastructure in the coming legislative session, noting that he also plans to begin employing more townhall meetings to 'keep the citizens abreast of the goings on in Jackson.'
Monroe County Journal Managing Editor Ray Van Dusen contributed to this article.
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Republican Winsome Earle-Sears is on the defensive in Virginia's race for governor
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Nearly every Democrat in Virginia politics has pledged to support her. When Democrats Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones won their respective primary races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, the three nominees went on a bus tour across Virginia. Earle-Sears' ticket lacks that kind of unity, though that is not entirely of her doing. Once the Republican statewide nominees had solidified before the June primaries, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked John Reid, the candidate for lieutenant governor, to leave the ticket after opposition research linked him to a social media account with sexually explicit photos. Reid denied the allegations and refused to step down, but a rally for the statewide ticket was canceled. After that, the three top Republican candidates did not campaign together for months. Earle-Sears' campaign, meanwhile, has had its own challenges. This summer, a pastor with little political experience stepped down from managing her campaign, and her team has failed to gain traction with big money donors. Attorney General Jason Miyares, seeking a second term, has raised nearly as much money, with roughly $2 million short of the lieutenant governor. He has more in the bank — nearly $7 million compared with almost $5 million for Earle-Sears. One of her biggest donors, a political action committee tied to the Republican Governors Association, gave $500,000 to her campaign in June. But by this time in August 2021, the association had donated more than $2 million to Youngkin's campaign. Responding to written questions about the donations, a spokesperson for the association said: 'Winsome Earle-Sears is the only candidate in this race who will keep Virginia on the right track forged by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Under their leadership, parents' rights have been protected, Virginia's economy is growing, and communities are safe.' 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She shouldn't have, because the candidate she's running against is not very good, but I think she's got a tough race. But I would.' Many state Republicans are more forceful about standing behind their nominee. At the Hopewell gathering, Republican Dels. Mike Cherry and Scott Wyatt, who are seeking reelection, urged voters to back the lieutenant governor. In a prayer, Cherry asked God to 'imbue her with strength and stamina for the days that are to come in the final, waning days of this election.' Wyatt encouraged voters to help Earle-Sears continue the successes of Youngkin's administration. Then Earle-Sears walked onto the stage, smiling and cracking jokes. She described a political climate where Democrats and the media were hitting her with everything they've got. She predicted that she would show them come November. 'How many of you have seen or read about the polls, which say I am 10 points down?' she said. 'Don't believe it.' Not that she doesn't need more money to make that happen. 'Are we going to pass the offering bucket?' Earle-Sears said to a chuckling crowd. 'OK, see, you're laughing again, and I'm not laughing because that's what it's going to take for us to win.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Texas Democrats fled the state to oppose GOP redistricting. Why this one stayed behind.
AUSTIN – State Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, a South Texas Democrat, has spent the past week prowling near-empty halls in the Texas state Capitol, talking to any Republican lawmaker who would listen and trying to avert a U.S. Supreme Court showdown. On the nearby House floor, Republican lawmakers maneuvered to try to launch a rare mid-decade redistricting effort. They've drawn up a new map of U.S. House districts that could give the GOP five more seats and help the party maintain control of the narrowly-divided chamber. Most of Raymond's Democratic colleagues left Texas in an attempt to bust the quorums needed for the legislature to pass the measure. But he stayed behind, trying to cajole, convince, pressure or plead his way out of the crisis. For Raymond, it's déjà vu all over again. In 2003, when Texas Republican lawmakers again tried to redraw districts outside the norms of the once-a-decade process that follows each new Census, Raymond was on the redistricting committee and became an ardent voice of the opposition. When the measure passed, he was named as a plaintiff in a lawsuit that ultimately ended in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. This time, he said, the stakes are even higher. 'Two-thousand-three was a big deal. We went through a lot,' Raymond, 64, told USA TODAY from his first-floor office at the Capitol. 'I could see that that was history making and what's going on right now will be history making.' Midterm battle prompts Texas showdown The current showdown began when President Donald Trump and White House officials urged Texas Republican leaders to redraw voting maps to add five new Republican-friendly seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. State Democrats traveled to Illinois – some even to New York and Massachusetts – to prevent Republicans from reaching the two-thirds quorum in the 150-member legislature needed to conduct business. If Texas Republicans succeed in adding five GOP seats to the U.S. House, the Trump-friendly chamber could allow the president to continue one of the most aggressive and disruptive agendas in modern presidential history. A Democratic majority in January 2027 opens the door to Congressional investigations, legislative paralysis − even a third impeachment. Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to arrest the absent lawmakers and the U.S. Justice Department has said it will also try to track down the AWOL representatives. And on Aug. 8, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state Supreme Court to oust 13 Democratic lawmakers from office over their absence from the Capitol, arguing they abandoned their seats when they fled the state. The GOP's Texas power play has set off a redistricting arms race as blue state leaders move to create more Democratic-leaning House seats to counter Texas, and lawmakers in other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, consider joining the fray. Vice President JD Vance met with Indiana lawmakers on Aug. 7 reportedly to urge them to redraw maps and Florida Republican leaders have said they, too, will form a committee to begin redrawing districts. In 2003, Texas Republicans also tried to redraw maps three years after Census data was released, prompting state Democrats to retreat to a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma, just over the state line from Texas and out of reach of troopers who could force them to return. 'Pack a toothbrush. Pack hair spray.' How the Texas Democrats are living on the run Raymond fought the bill in committee then joined his colleagues in Oklahoma. During committee hearings, he was at times the lone Democrat, objecting to Republican motions and grilling witnesses about the legality and fairness of gerrymandering maps for partisan gain. His goal was to get his comments and questions – and their replies – on the official record. 'Just really putting them through the ringer to build the court record,' he remembered. 'I was very, very involved in it, from the beginning to the end.' Lawmakers ultimately approved the new maps. But lawsuits were filed and the case wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 5-4 decision upheld the Texas redistricting plan but ruled part of it violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Latino voters. A proposal to split Laredo, Raymond's hometown, in half was removed. 'It was a 50-50 victory, but a victory nonetheless,' he said. 'Try to talk to everybody' On Aug. 8, Raymond walked the short distance from his first-floor office to the second-floor House chamber. He wound his way around desks, chatting with fellow lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, patting others on the back, joking with others. There's a saying, he said, that's popular in the Spanish-speaking border city where he's from: Hablando se entiende, or 'Speaking to each other, you're able to understand each other.' 'I have always tried my whole career to try to talk to everybody, get to know everybody, all 149 other members,' he said. 'That hasn't changed.' Raymond, a state lawmaker since 2001, is one of the more tenured Democrats in the legislature. Known as a moderate, he represents a heavily Latino district that fans out for several square miles from Laredo along the U.S.-Mexico border and is home to about 183,000 residents. Last year, Trump managed a near sweep of Texas border counties, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, winning 14 of the 18 counties on or near the border, including Webb County, which includes Laredo. Trump's wins along the border were the biggest for a presidential candidate in three decades, outpacing those by native Texan George W. Bush when he won the governorship in 2004. The border's shifting allegiances make it politically risky for representatives of those districts to align too closely with national Democratic figures, such as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is essentially harboring the Texas Democrats, said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist. It's no coincidence, Jones said, that five of the six Democrats who stayed behind last week were from border districts in South Texas. Raymond, who is up for reelection next year, also likely prefers to keep his distance, he said. Republicans in Texas appear to be razor-focused on keeping the new redistricting maps unchanged, Jones said, despite the efforts of Raymond or anyone else. 'The idea you can stay behind and get maps drawn to be less impactful on Democratic representation is very unlikely,' he said. Raymond acknowledged he's faced with a herculean task – not unlike Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill at Tartarus in Greek mythology. His deepest fear, he said, is that the issue will again end up before the Supreme Court – this time with a court much more malleable to the GOP agenda. Still, he'll keep trying. When it gets to feel overwhelming, he said, he tries to remind himself that other members equally love their country and state – and are trying to make it better. 'I recognize that we won't always agree on how we get there, but I don't ever doubt that,' Raymond said. 'I always start from that common place.' The session on Aug. 8 was brief: Eight minutes gavel to gavel. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Republican, recognized there still wasn't a quorum, chastised the missing members and adjourned until Monday, Aug. 11. Moments after Burrows gaveled the meeting to a close, Raymond began talking to other lawmakers. Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis. Contributing: Zac Anderson, USA TODAY. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas Democrat stays behind to battle Republican redistricting push Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
California can never win a race to the bottom with Trump on redistricting
If California's ruling Democrats were wise, they'd use this moment to introduce reforms that would enhance democracy — and even boost Republican representation in California's Legislature and congressional delegation. But they're not that smart. Instead, Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading his state and the national Democratic Party into a contest of anti-democratic tactics with MAGA Republicans. For starters, this is a competition over which side can best exploit the legislative redistricting process to lock up Congressional seats in the 2026 election. That's a contest that Californians simply can't win. We're never going to out-autocrat or out-authoritarian President Donald Trump. Why would we ever want to? Newsom answers that question with what he and other Democrats claim is hard-headed realism. Trump is trying to gerrymander Texas and GOP states to steal U.S. House seats and retain MAGA control of Congress. So, Newsom says, blue states must 'fight fire with fire' and gerrymander to steal additional seats of their own. Fighting Trump is righteous, but this strategy is a loser, for several reasons. The first is practical: It won't work. Republicans control more state legislatures (28) than Democrats (18), and thus have more opportunities to gerrymander more seats in their favor. Escalating the gerrymandering fight will produce more Democratic losses. Second, it's legally and constitutionally risky. California's independent citizens redistricting commission, which draws lines based on keeping communities together (rather than politics), was approved by voters and is popular. Newsom, by gerrymandering, would replace the commission's map with legally dubious ones. California's own courts could find Newsom's move unconstitutional. And California voters could block the maps in a special election — and then punish the Democrats for their anti-democratic behavior in the 2026 election. Even worse, using anti-democratic tactics against Trump validates his authoritarianism. The fight against Trump shouldn't become just another partisan battle between Democrats and Republicans. Instead, it must be framed as a fight between democratic self-government and a would-be dictator. To win that contest, California must demonstrate that it is a leader — a major global actor, relentlessly committed to freedom and democracy, despite attacks from the fascist American government. But Newsom's gerrymandering gambit diminishes California, making us just another large state with a dominant political party using its might to determine election outcomes. So, what should California do instead? The only way to beat the awful MAGA authoritarians is by enhancing democracy — and showing a commitment to empowering the people, even if it brings your side political costs. A true democracy is one where even political losers feel like winners. Which is why Newsom and state leaders should make California more democratic, not less. And they should demonstrate that with reforms that would give Republicans more democratic representation in California. First, California and its Democrats should enact proportional representation, the fairest way to divide up legislative seats. Right now, Republicans get about 40% of the votes for Congress and the Legislature in California, but they have less than one-quarter of the representatives. That's because the current winner-take-all system awards each legislative district only one representative. A proportional system would allocate representation based on voting percentage and would likely give the GOP 40% of the seats, nearly doubling the percentage of today's Republican minorities in the Legislature and Congress. National Democrats would go crazy at boosting Republicans. But so what? National Democrats never get strategy right. Right now, turning the other cheek — enhancing democracy instead of engaging in anti-democratic war — would be the real gangster move. It would awaken a country all too accustomed to endless political escalations. And it would demonstrate that California, at least, is dedicated to fighting for democratic representation for all. Even some Republicans would be impressed and appreciative. Second, California should combine proportional representation with the elimination of rules that make it hard for smaller political parties to form and compete in politics. This change would reduce the power of MAGA because Republicans who don't like Trump could form separate parties. Dividing Californians into more parties would inspire political coalition-making. And it would avoid a war over redistricting that distracts from the righteous fights we need to have. While Democratic politicians obsess about gerrymandering and their own seats, they are failing to provide Californians the protections we need right now. The state has done far too little to mitigate against Trump's budget cuts and dismantling of federal agencies. California law enforcement is failing to investigate and hold accountable the federal agents acting as secret police on our streets. When will California leaders go on offense? Why aren't we taking the fiscal fight to Trump by seizing federal property or organizing tax strikes? Where are the initiatives to establish legal autonomy or even nationhood for California? Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
