Republican Mississippi U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s campaign released her most pointed ad of the 2020 cycle Wednesday, contrasting her record with her Democrat opponent, Mike Espy.
The ad, according to the campaign, will be running statewide.
“In the election for Senate, you have a clear choice,” the narrator says. “Mike Espy voted to raise your taxes but refused to pay his on time. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to cut your taxes and grow our economy. Mike Espy voted to give taxpayer-funded health care to illegal aliens. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted to help rural hospitals with more funding for health care. Mike Espy worked as a lobbyist for a foreign dictator charged with war crimes. Cindy Hyde-Smith works to support America’s military and law enforcement. That’s the difference.”
The Hyde-Smith campaign’s main attacks on Espy are on two main fronts and both are largely regurgitated from the 2018 campaign.
First, the Hyde-Smith campaign reasserts that Mike Espy had, at one point in 2010, substantial unpaid taxes. The Washington Free Beacon reported:
The three most recent liens filed by the IRS against Espy were in June 2009 and September and December 2010. Those liens, totaling more than $267,000, remained unpaid until shortly after Espy entered into a fruitful lobbying contract with the government of Côte d’Ivoire.
The second front that Hyde-Smith opened up on Espy was his lobbying ties on behalf of the previously referenced Ivory Coast dictator named Laurent Gbagbo through his AE Agritrade lobbying firm. This was a campaign issue that Y’all Politics covered substantially in the 2018 showdown between Hyde-Smith and Espy.
Y’all Politics sought comment on the claims in Hyde-Smith’s ad from the Espy campaign on Wednesday but no response was provided by press time. This post will be updated with any comments provided by the Espy campaign.
Frank Corder
