Washington Free Beacon senior writer Elizabeth Harrington said on Monday that the mainstream media is pushing to make the runoff election for the Mississippi Senate race competitive.
"The mainstream media is really pushing this to be in play. They are very excited. They're trying to make this candidate, the Republican candidate, out to be a racist, which is one of their favorite plays in the playbook. But I really don't think it's a situation like we saw in Alabama, where the candidate was accused of molesting teenagers," Harrington told Fox Business host Connell McShane.
Harrington said Democrats in statewide Mississippi races have garnered more than 45 percent of the vote only once in the past decade.
"Democrats have not won more than 45 percent of the vote in Mississippi. They have only done it once in more than a decade, and that was 2008 when Barack Obama was on the ticket for the first time. You had record turnout and they still didn't win that race, but they did crack 45 percent. I don't think there's enough votes there for turnout, especially when it's going to be a low turnout race, only a few days after Thanksgiving," she said.
On Nov. 6, incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R., Miss.) received the most votes but didn't break the state's 50 percent threshold required for victory. The race will go to a run-off, which will be held on Nov. 27. Her Democratic opponent, Mike Espy, garnered nearly 40 percent of the vote on election day.
Hyde-Smith has made national headlines the past week over comments she made about a public hanging and a joke about suppressing college students' votes. Both stories have appeared on cable news with speculation Republicans could be in trouble.