On November 6th, 35 elections to the senate took place. Most of them weren’t that competitive, but a couple stuck out as potentially very interesting. Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia had democratic incumbents in red states who could be in trouble. However, today we’re not going to talk about that, because those races are pretty done and dusted. We’re here to talk about the only senate election that is yet to be called, the Mississippi special election.

The election is taking place today, on Tuesday November 27th, because it is a runoff, which means no one candidate surpassed 50% of the vote in the first round where there were 2 republicans and 2 democrats. So, the race moved forwards to today and eliminated everyone on the ballot but the top two vote-getters, who were republican Hyde-Smith and democrat Espy.

Let’s be real here: incumbent senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is a pretty heavy favorite, and that’s the case for a couple of resons:

• 1: Mississippi is a very red state, among the reddest in the country.
• 2: Mississippi is a very inelastic state, that is to say, there aren’t many swing voters.

However, there’s also a couple of reasons why we’re in this mess. For one, Hyde-Smith is an incumbent, yes, but she’s an appointed incumbent, not an elected one. What that means is that this is her first time facing the voters, because she’s been appointed to the office by the governor because of the death or retirement of another senator. In this case, it was senator Thad Cochran who resigned. This may seem minor, but appointed incumbents typically do worse than elected ones. Just look at Minnesota’s two senate races this cycle. Both of the victors were democrats, but elected incumbent Amy Klobuchar won by a very wide 30% margin, while appointed incumbent Tina Smith won by a comparatively anemic 10%.

However, the most important reason are Hyde-Smith’s inflammatory comments on race. She joked about attending a public hanging to a supporter, and she also talked about making it harder for liberals to vote. In case you couldn’t tell, THESE AREN’T THINGS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY. She has, apparently, gotten away with a half-apology-but-not-really, but this is probably the main reason why this race is competitive. Probably the worst part about the comments is Mississippi’s history of lynchings, being the worst offender among all the states way back when. Truly, Hyde-Smith has proven to be an incredibly inept candidate.

So those are Hyde-Smith’s weaknesses, but what are Espy’s strong points? Let’s go through a couple of them.

First off, he’s a very good candidate. He’s a former Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration and he also was a longtime Congressman from Mississippi’s only blue district. He’s a well trained, well prepared candidate for the job, and he has put up more of a fight than some former city council member would have.

Furthermore, the timing of the election could favor Espy. This is happening a couple of short days after Thanksgiving, so folks who aren’t energized by a campaign may not even realize that they are being called to go to the polls today. If the turnout is similar to those of a special election, then he can make it close.

So, what would an Espy win look like? It’s actually pretty simple: bolstered turnout among black communities, probably needs to go a bit higher than on election day, and depressed turnout among white republicans. If that’s what happens today, then it’ll be very interesting. However, if there are any exit polls that fundamentally contradict this narrative (I don’t know if exit polls will be conducted), then Espy’s probably toast.

And how likely is an Espy win? Nate Silver says it’s around 15%, and I agree. That’s the range where it really could happen and it’s pretty unlikely, so prepare yourself. Mentally. It might be a long night.