The Senate is in recess so it will be another week before cattle farmer Cindy Hyde-Smith, a veteran of state politics, formally succeeds Thad Cochran as U.S. senator from Mississippi. She already has a Republican challenger in the November special election to serve the final two years of Cochran’s term, and had a get-acquainted meeting with top White House officials last week.
Hyde-Smith will be the first woman senator from Mississippi and the twenty-third serving in the chamber, a record. When she was elected state agriculture commissioner in 2011, she was the first woman to win statewide office in Mississippi history. She won a second term as agriculture commissioner in 2015 with nearly 62 percent of the vote in a three-way race.
Those firsts, and her decision to switch party affiliation to Republican from Democrat in 2010, obscure Hyde-Smith’s record in the statehouse. She was a state senator for 12 years, from 2000-12, and chaired the Agriculture Committee from 2004-12, when she became agriculture commissioner.
When Gov. Phil Bryant announced the appointment of Hyde-Smith as senator in her hometown of Brookhaven, 60 miles south of the state capital of Jackson, he highlighted her work as agriculture commissioner and her role in putting USDA in charge of catfish inspection ,one of the priorities of the U.S. aquaculture industry. Domestic catfish farmers say imported fish from Southeast Asia are raised in inferior conditions and need careful inspection. The FDA handles most seafood inspection.
The White House was unenthusiastic about the appointment, although Hyde-Smith was a member of President Trump’s agriculture advisory committee in 2016. Politico said the administration told Bryant, at the time the governor selected Hyde-Smith, that the president did not plan to endorse or campaign for her.
Bryant says Hyde-Smith is a persuasive campaigner and popular among voters. But some strategists say the dynamics of the Nov. 6 special election could work against her and the GOP. State Sen. Chris McDaniel, who ran a hard-right and nearly successful challenge to Cochran in the 2014 Republican primary, is running again for Cochran’s seat. There will be no party primaries before the special election and if no one wins a majority of the vote, a runoff will pit the two leading vote-getters. If McDaniel out-polls Hyde-Smith, centrist voters might hand the election to the Democratic nominee, say some analysts. The analogue is last year’s Senate race in Alabama, in which Democrat Doug Jones defeated conservative Republican Ray Moore.
“She’s going to have a very important three- to four-week period coming out of the gate,” one Mississippi Republican operative told the Washington Post.
Cochran’s departure will bring the second turnover in Senate Agriculture Committee membership this year, and at the moment chairman Pat Roberts plans to draft the new farm bill. Cochran, a powerful voice for cotton, rice and other southern crops, was one of three southerners on the committee, which has 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats. The others are Republicans John Boozman of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia.
Hyde-Smith’s committee assignments have yet to be announced. Her ties to agriculture are up to date. On the day the governor appointed her to the Senate, Hyde-Smith’s first chore on her family farm was to round up a stray cow. “So Hyde-Smith, still in her dress clothes from her announcement ceremony, put on a pair of Muck boots and chased the cow back in,” reported the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. “In what may be Hyde-Smith’s introduction to D.C.-type media leaks, a witness provided a photo of the wrangling to the Clarion-Ledger.”