Will McDaniel challenge Hosemann?

The Jones County State Senator is a leading voice questioning whether the Lt. Governor’s policy worldview is sufficiently conservative.

Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann qualified to run for re-election on Thursday. This was not in doubt. One burning question that has been in doubt, however, is whether he will draw a Republican Primary challenge?

For months, the political zeitgeist has been that State Senator Chris McDaniel is gearing up for a run against the popular Hosemann.

Hosemann became a household name through a series of brilliant political advertisements that played on his unusual first name during his bid for Secretary of State in 2007. As Secretary of State, he was known, and well regarded, for streamlining many of the processes that run through the office.

But where the secretary of state’s office serves an executive function, the office of lieutenant governor presides over one-half of our state’s policymaking body. An executive administering laws and regulations might not have his or her policy positions on display. A legislative office cannot help but to have those policies on display.

In the case of Hosemann, some critics, of which McDaniel is a leading voice, have questioned whether his policy worldview is sufficiently conservative. Over the last couple of sessions, two particular policy positions have come into focus.

On both Medicaid expansion and income tax elimination, Governor Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn have been in lock step. Both Republicans oppose expansion and favor the elimination of the state income tax.

Hosemann’s positions on these issues have been more nuanced. On Medicaid expansion, he has pushed for at least some forms of expansion, such as moving from sixty days to twelve months of post-partum care for mothers. His appointment of Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat, to chair Senate Public Health, the committee through which any proposal to expand Medicaid would run, has compounded suspicion in some circles. Bryan is an outspoken proponent of Medicaid expansion.

On taxes, Hosemann was reticent to commit to any plan that would have fully eliminated the state’s income tax, even as his counterparts in the Governor’s office and Mississippi House waged a full-frontal assault in support. The end result of this two-year battle was a law that fell short of full elimination, but yielded what will be one of the lowest flat taxes in the country.

For his part, Hosemann rejects the use of the word “expansion” in discussions about his position on Medicaid. He has also pointed to the Senate’s role in helping to craft the final compromise tax reform last year as proof of his conservative bona fides.

Whatever the critiques, Hosemann would start the race with a real advantage. His name ID is high. He is popular. He will have a decided advantage when it comes to money. And it is not clear if questions being raised about whether or not he is adequately conservative have permeated down to the voting population, or if they would be found credible.

McDaniel is no stranger to uphill fights, having waged political war in 2014 in an attempt to retire Senator Thad Cochran from the U.S. Senate. His bid was nearly successful, coming within a whisper of winning the primary outright, before losing a bloody primary runoff. The race created significant fracture within the Republican base. Four years later, when he ran in a special election to replace Cochran, who had stepped down for health reasons, McDaniel finished third.

His firebrand style has allowed him to build a base of extremely loyal conservative supporters but has also galvanized critics. For months now, he has been traveling the state meeting with supporters and alluding to a challenge, but the time for a decision is nigh with a February 1st deadline to qualify.

In some ways, the risk to McDaniel is greater than in his two previous races for U.S. Senate. In both of those instances, he could safely maintain his state senate seat while running. Were McDaniel to jump into the race for lieutenant governor and lose, he would be out of political office.

If he were to run, conventional handicapping would put the likelihood of McDaniel unseating Hosemann low, but we are living in a turbulent political environment—one in which there is real primary risks to Republican officeholders if a challenger can convince voters that they are more conservative. That risk is compounded if a challenger can raise the resources and build a grassroots army to push that message. 

Stay tuned.