 (Reuters) - Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won a U.S. Senate special election runoff in conservative Mississippi on Tuesday, defeating a black challenger after a campaign that recalled the history of racist violence in the deep South state. For Democrats, the best-case scenario is similar to how Democratic Sen. Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in Alabama a year ago: a narrow victory fueled by massive turnout from black voters. Trump's visits to Mississippi on Monday night were also seen as bid to rally the Republican base to vote in an election taking place two days after the Thanksgiving weekend. President Trump is hosting not one, but two rallies for her on Monday, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Senate Leadership Fund are reportedly spending more than $1 million each on ads. The Republican candidate is incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the former state agriculture and commerce commissioner who was appointed to Cochran’s seat in March. President, thank you so much for all of your help,” Hyde-Smith said in a victory speech to supporters, calling her win a triumph of “conservative values.” 
 
 “Mississippians know me and they know my heart,” she said. Earlier this month, when multiple candidates in both parties were on the ballot, Hyde-Smith and conservative Chris McDaniel combined for 58% of the vote, while Espy and Democrat Tobey Bartee got 42%. Thus, Mississippi is one of the least elastic states in the country — in other words, a perennial 60-40 red state, just like it was in the first round of the special Senate election (in aggregate, Republican candidates got 57.7 percent and Democratic candidates got 42.3 percent). Democrats expect high turnout from their base, boosted in part by backlash to Hyde-Smith’s comments about being first in line to a public hanging if one of her supporters invited her, and a second remark about limiting liberals' ability to vote. Her campaign said it was a joke, but that explanation backfired when the black student from the event seen laughing in a picture her campaign posted on Twitter responded that Hyde-Smith's campaign was using him as a prop. As a result, corporations like Walmart and Major League Baseball have asked for refunds of their donations to Hyde-Smith’s campaign, but it is far from certain how much the controversies will matter to Hyde-Smith’s (mostly white) Mississippi base.
– Will it be 53-47 or 52-48? The last election of 2018 will determine the Republican advantage in the Senate next year. GOP incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is trying to fend off Democratic challenger Mike Espy in Mississippi in Tuesday's special election. As Politico reports, Hyde-Pierce has never trailed in the polls and continues to be the favorite to win, but a string of controversies—starting with her joke about a public hanging—has given Espy a bigger-than-expected shot at becoming the state's first black senator since Reconstruction. "A wounded front-runner" is how a political science professor in Jackson describes Hyde-Smith to Reuters. President Trump easily won the state in 2016, and he held two rallies there Monday for his fellow Republican. "Her heart is good," Trump said of Hyde-Smith, per CNN. Trump called her controversial joke "sad and a little flip," but he defended her explanation that it was meant as a good-natured way of praising a supporter. "When I spoke to her—she called me—she said, 'I said something that I meant exactly very different,' and I heard an apology loud and clear," Trump said. As for Espy: "How does he fit in with Mississippi?" the president asked, as noted by CNBC. "I mean, how does he fit in?" The website FiveThirtyEight reports that a survey last week had Hyde-Smith up 54% to 44%. (Major League Baseball was among those to ask for its donation back from Hyde-Smith.)