The Mississippi Republican Party is making a big push across the state to elect more republican candidates in the June 6 municipal elections. MPB's Alexis Ware reports.
The majority of Mississippi's statewide office holders are Republicans, including the Governor and Lt. Governor. Republicans also hold a supermajority in the Mississippi legislature. Now, the party is ramping up its Get Out The Vote campaign to increase the number of locally elected officials from mayors to alderman. Joe Nosef is the chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. He says despite republican majorities statewide, winning municipal elections is important.
"One of the things we don't want to do is rest on whatever success we've had. They sounds like a cliche and maybe it is but quite frankly people that don't know about Mississippi think we've always been a red state and we haven't. It wasn't too long ago that Phil Bryant was the only statewide elected Republican official."
Mississippi Democratic Party chairman Bobby Moak says they are also working to maintain and increase Democratic elected positions at the municipal level. He says they're concerned more Republicans elected locally could lead to policies that will hurt cities and towns.
"This program is not working that the republicans have been pushing, so as much as they would like to whistle past the graveyard on those issues, they simply cannot. With the state hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink and now they want to elect their Republican officials at the municipal level to bring that same policy to our cities. People are not wanting to do that at all."
Mississippians will be voting for mayors, councilman and alderman in the June 6th general election. According to the Secretary of State, voter turnout is typically low for municipal elections.
