Issue #207: Halloween Part 1: The 2023 Mississippi Coroner Elections

The realignment moves down-ballot

Anyone who has been following me for any time knows I am somewhat obsessed coroner elections in American. Currently, over 1,000 counties in America elect a “County Coroner.” Almost all of these are elected on a partisan ballot. In October of 2021, this was the party breakdown.

In October of 2017, I did a detailed look on the election of Coroners in America. Then in 2021, I did an updated nationwide analysis. You can see that below.

The 2021 Coroner Election Deep Dive

As of 2021, many otherwise-Republican counties still had Democratic county coroners. In 2021, there were over 250 counties that had a Democratic coroner but voted for Donald Trump.

The reasoning here is pretty simple. This was not just a case for coroners, but rather often the case for other local offices. Many of these counties likewise still had Democratic Clerks, Sheriffs, or Tax Collectors. All these counties have one broad thing in common - they were ancestral Democratic areas. These communities, often the old Dixiecrat, Coal Democrats, or rural farmer Democrats, used to be be up and down the ticket.

Many of these counties began voting Republican off and on at the top of the ticket decades ago. However, the realignment of a county’s politics often slowly works down ballot. Often the case is that a longtime Democratic official will keep winning re-election well after the national politics in the county has shifted red. However, as time goes on, Democratic incumbents retiree, or run for re-election after switching parties. Rarely are Democratic coroner losses due to the incumbent losing re-election.

Last year, I wrote about the 2022 Kentucky Coroner elections. In 2022, the Kentucky Democrats lost their majority of Coroner posts, losing TWENT-SIX offices.

Issue #136: Halloween 2023 Part 1: The Kentucky Coroner Elections

However, only FOUR of those losses were due to Incumbents being defeated. The culprit otherwise was party switches and retirements.

In the 2022 midterms, Republicans gained majorities of the Kentucky and Arkansas coroner positions. This meant that only Mississippi remained with a majority.

Those elections would be held during the state’s 2023 Governor election.

The 2023 Coroner Elections in Mississippi

Mississippi holds its Governor and cabinet elections in the odd year just before the Presidential contest. This is the same time it holds elections for all county offices. I actually wrote about the 2019 Coroner Elections, which had seen the Republicans net 8 posts. Democrats ended the year with 49 offices to the GOP’s 30. You can read about that series of races here.

In 2023, Democrats LOST control of the Mississippi coroner posts. The Republicans made a net gain of 12 seats and NPA’s picked up another 5 from Democrats.

The results came despite the Governor election in the state remaining remarkably close. Republican Governor Tate Reeves was mired in scandal and not especially popular. Democrat Brandon Presley came closer than any Democrat since 1999. What ended up happening with the Governor race, however, is that only a few counties that backed Reeves also stuck with Democrats down-ballot.

A vast majority of counties in Mississippi saw their Coroner results match Governor results.

While there was massive change-over with the coroner posts in Mississippi, many of these offices were unopposed. Even many of the party flips occurred in races with no general election challenger.

Coroner posts are very often unopposed. It becomes an office someone wins and then just holds until they don’t want it. I delve into this more in my bigger articles, but coroners will often be someone in the funeral industry, law enforcement, or healthcare. Many counties will have the same coroner for decades.

So, with so many unopposed (in the general election) counties, how did the flips happen? Below is any of the counties that saw the Party control for Coroner flip in 2023.

As the table shows, only 3 incumbents lost their re-elections. Two Democratic incumbents lost, and one lost while running as an NPA. Party switches and retirements were the common cause for a flip to the GOP or NPAs. Likewise, the lone Democratic gain came from the Republican incumbent running for Sheriff.

This was how the results broke down across any of the contested offices.

I looked at the contested races and picked out a few that I wanted to include precinct maps of.

Coroner Races of Note

The lone Democratic pickup in Mississippi occurred in Pike County, a blue leaning county that backed Presley by around 10%. The office had flipped to Republicans in 2019 when the Democratic incumbent retired. It has now flipped back. Democratic nominee David Taylor, who runs a funeral home in the county, defeated deputy coroner Chad Thomas.

Over in Scott County, Democrats had less luck. Incumbent coroner J. Van Thames lost his coroner post 54-46. Doing worse than Presley did in the Governor’s race.

There is frustratingly little information on this loss. Not many news sources with detailed campaign reports showed up online. Broadly the conclusion I draw as that down-ballot Republicans were surging, with Reeves just being personally unpopular. In the end, it just became about Party ID.

Meanwhile, over in deep-red Tishomingo County, Democratic coroner Mack Wilemon won re-election by running as an independent.

This was a massive over-performance from the Governor results, likely only possible by running as an NPA. If you notice from the tables above, no county saw Reeves dominate a county and a Democratic incumbent win re-election in a major contest. Democrats in Reeves Counties held on due to lack of challengers.

Finally, over in Monroe County, a red-leaning area, Democratic Incumbent Alan Gurley won re-election as an independent as well. However, this was not about Gurley surviving a Republican challenger. Instead, Gurley defeated a Democratic challenger to hold his post.

Here we see Gurley, who is a Trump-backing conservative, basically get the Republican vote to win. Honestly he could have just run as a Republican.

Final Thoughts

With these results, no states have Democrats with a majority of Coroner posts. More and more of the ancestral Democratic counties will continue to see their local politics align with the top of the ticket. In a state like Mississippi - this largely means moving in a Republican direction.

Tomorrow, I will like at the Coroner polarization in the Keystone State - Pennsylvania