FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

October 23, 2019

Contact: 601-551-1808

Hood Increases Lead in Race for Governor

Third poll since August shows Hood ahead, Reeves stagnant

JACKSON—The Hood for Governor Campaign released a new poll Wednesday that shows Jim Hood continuing to hold a lead over Tate Reeves in the Mississippi gubernatorial election. Hood leads Reeves 46%-42% among likely voters, according to the poll conducted by Hickman Analytics.

Hood wins more support from Republicans than Reeves wins from Democrats, and Hood leads by double digits among non-partisan/Independent voters.

Both candidates are known by over 90% of voters, but Hood’s personal popularity rating remains higher than Reeves’. Double digits of Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of their party’s nominee. Among non-partisans, Hood’s net popularity rating is +18 while Reeves’ is more unfavorable than favorable (-3) among this key group.

Most voters take Hood’s side on major issues. Hood leads Reeves on which candidate would perform better keeping rural hospitals open (+22), on deciding whether or not to expand Medicaid (+17), education (+12), roads and bridges (+12), and cleaning up corruption (+9). Hood is viewed as more likely than Reeves to buck his national party (+11), stay independent of special interests (+4), do what’s right rather than what’s popular (+7), and to tell the truth (+5). After more than a month of intensifying campaign communications from both sides, voters are more likely to think Reeves is running a negative campaign.

It remains true that Hood is well-positioned to be elected governor.

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Technical note: This memo is based on a survey of 508 likely voters in Mississippi. Telephone interviewing was conducted October 13th through 16th, 2019. The sample was selected so all likely voters were equally likely to be contacted, including a sample of cell phone numbers. The results were adjusted slightly to align the sample with known facts about the geographic and demographic composition of Mississippi likely voters. All polls are subject to errors associated with interviewing a sample rather than the entire universe. The estimation error associated with a sample of 500 is +/-4.4 percentage points. In other words, in 95 out of 100 cases, the results of this poll are within 4.4 percentage points (plus or minus) of the results that would have been achieved in interviews with every likely voter in Mississippi. Estimation errors are higher among subgroups of the sample.