Mississippi voters have never elected a Black candidate to statewide office, despite having the largest proportional Black population of any U.S. state at nearly 40%. Mississippi is the only state with a multistep process for electing statewide positions like governor, attorney general and secretary
This report is part of"Turning Point," a groundbreaking month-long series by ABC News examining the racial reckoning sweeping the United States and exploring whether it can lead to lasting reconciliation.
Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and a former Mississippi state representative, D-District 68, said that the current process essentially"blocks the door from Black participation in our statewide government." The law itself hasn't deterred Black candidates from trying to run, said Derrick Johnson, CEO and president of the NAACP, but"the viability of winning statewide is daunting."
That was the case in two recent national elections. Barack Obama never won Mississippi, losing to John McCain in 2008 and again to Mitt Romney in 2012 -- both times by double digits. According to exit polling data, white voters in 2008 voted against Obama by an 8-to-1 margin that increased to nearly 9-to-1 in 2012.Mississippi structured its statewide elections in this way to disenfranchise Black voters -- and framers did not disguise those intentions.
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