Ten members of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday, about six months before the state’s 2020 presidential primary.
The 10 Mississippi lawmakers are included in a group of 59 African American legislators from across the country who endorsed Biden on Thursday, according to a Biden campaign press release. The endorsements from Mississippi are the most of any state.
“I can’t think of a reason not to support him,” said Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, and chairwoman of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus. “During his years as vice president, I thought he assisted President Obama in a way I could be proud of. I’d like to see that leadership continue.”
Joining Turner-Ford in endorsing Biden on Thursday were Sens. Derrick Simmons, Barbara Blackmon, John Horhn and Sollie Norwood, as well as Reps. Chris Bell, Edward Blackmon, Cedric Burnett, Carl Mickens and Kenneth Walker.
Biden has commanded the only two public polls regarding the 2020 Democratic presidential primary conducted in the state this year, garnering 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in a June poll from Millsaps College/Chism Strategies, and 47 percent of Democratic respondents in a July poll from NBC News/SurveyMonkey.
The former vice president faced blowback from Democrats and African Americans across the country earlier this year when he cited his relationship with segregationist U.S. Sen. Jim Eastland of Mississippi as evidence of his skills as a consensus builder.
“At least there was some civility,” Biden said of Eastland at a June fundraiser in New York. “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition — the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
The Millsaps/Chism Strategies survey in which Biden showed 50 percent support among likely Democratic primary candidates was conducted two days after Biden’s comments about Eastland surfaced.
Biden faces nine Democratic primary candidates in the third Democratic debate of the 2020 cycle on Thursday night on ABC.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.