On Thursday, MS NOW’s On the Line found plenty of ways to make Mississippi’s election about Donald Trump, but activist LaTosha Brown took things a step further by invoking the state’s Jim Crow history to explain the apparent Democratic advantage.
Host Alicia Menendez updated Brown on the latest vote count, reporting that Democrat Scott Colom was ahead of Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 1,724 votes. Menendez credited organizations like Brown’s for spending weeks in Mississippi mobilizing communities and educating voters.
When asked what a Colom victory would mean for black voters, Brown wasted little time connecting the election to the state’s history of racial discrimination and recent redistricting disputes.
“I really think that this speaks to– that black voters at all of the attacks that we saw from the Louisiana v. Callais decision,” said Brown.
She then brought up Governor Tate Reeves’ attempt to convene a redistricting session at the old state capitol, describing the location as “the birth for the most part of Jim Crow.”
“Remember when the redistricting, the governor tried to call redistricting in the old courthouse in the old state house, which was the birth for the most part of Jim Crow,” Brown said.
The decision to hold the vote in the old state house was because the current one was undergoing renovations, but apparently, the election was about much more than the candidates on the ballot. Brown argued that Mississippi voters were making a broader statement about racial representation.
“They're not only saying that black voters matter, but the people of Mississippi matter,” she declared.
Brown also touted turnout, claiming more than a million people had voted, and compared the participation to presidential election numbers.
Menendez then brought in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, PBS contributor, and The Weekend co-host Jonathan Capehart, framing the discussion around an administration that had supposedly “done everything they can to make it harder for these voters to turn up.”
Capehart was happy to take the baton, mocking the administration with a reference to the slang phrase F.A.F.O.
“For an administration that like to appropriate black colloquialisms, I'm thinking of F.A.F.O., they FA’d and FO’d,” he teased.
He claimed attempts to discourage black voters had instead motivated them to turn out, and declared “You cannot take a right away from a people and not expect them to rise up and use every legal means to exercise their right to vote.”
Capehart even detoured into abortion politics, invoking Kansas’ ballot referendum before returning to his sweeping assessment of the Mississippi results.
“The fact that we are talking about Mississippi tells me that Americans decided to rise up all over the country to say, hell no to everything that's been happening the last two years,” he concluded.
MS NOW managed to pack it all into one conversation, turning a state-level race into yet another opportunity to declare a nationwide revolt against Trump and to pat themselves on the back for using racial fearmongering as a get out the vote tactic.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW’s On The Line With Alicia Menendez
November 5, 2026
12:07:10 p.m. Eastern(...)
ALICIA MENENDEZ: LaTosha, I'm getting an update from our producers. Colom is ahead by 1724 votes as of right now. That is in part because of organizations like yours that had teams in Mississippi for weeks mobilizing communities there, educating voters. What would it mean for black voters in the state if Colom can pull this off? And what message then are black voters sending to Washington?
LATOSHA BROWN: Yeah, I think that it would mean not just for a lot, not just for black voters in Mississippi, but throughout the nation. I really think that this speaks to– that black voters at all of the attacks that we saw from the Louisiana v. Callais decision, that we saw, even in the state of Mississippi, remember when the redistricting, the governor tried to call redistricting in the old courthouse in the old state house, which was the birth for the most part of Jim Crow.
That, I think, this is a vote that the people in Mississippi are saying black voters and voters in Mississippi, they're not only saying that black voters matter, but the people of Mississippi matter. Over a million people actually voted in this election cycle. What makes it so different, particularly in Mississippi, is you're seeing presidential numbers. So, you're seeing the numbers of voters at the level in the midterm election for presidential election cycle.
MENENDEZ: I mean, I want to bring into the conversation Jonathan Capehart, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and co-host of The Weekend. We're having a conversation about black voters in the wake of an administration that has done everything they can to make it harder for these voters to turn up.
And you may not hear folks online to vote specifically reference Callais, but I can tell you, after talking to black voters in Texas, it was very much in the ether that there had been a challenge put up by their own government, that they were there to overwhelm.
JOHNATHAN CAPEHART: You know, for an administration that like to appropriate black colloquialisms, I'm thinking of F.A.F.O., they FA’d and FO’d. You cannot take a right away from a people and not expect them to rise up and use every legal means to exercise their right to vote. Anybody, if anyone in that administration who thought that they were going to cow African American voters, that they were going to make them disengaged, demoralized, just found out that, no, that's not what's going to happen.
And also, I would also add in terms of taking rights away, they also took away the right to abortion. And so I, I look at what happened in Kansas. That did not happen in a vacuum. The senator elect is an amazing person. But let's remember that Kansas shocked the nation. What was that 2 or 3 summers ago in a ballot referendum that no one paid attention to because it was Kansas and folks figured that it's a Republican state. Nothing's going to change. And yet it did.
But back to back to Mississippi. The fact, Alicia, that we are talking about Mississippi should tell anyone that the last two years of this second Trump administration, when everyone was just sort of like, wait, what the hell is happening? What? What's going on? Have we lost the country? The fact that we are talking about Mississippi tells me that Americans decided to rise up all over the country to say, hell no to everything that's been happening the last two years.
(...)
