Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's latest remarks to surface are the second controversy she’s faced this week. | AP Photo/Emily Wagster Pettus Elections Hyde-Smith’s campaign says comment about suppressing 'liberal' votes was 'a joke'

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s suggestion that Mississippi should make it harder for “liberal folks” to vote was “all a joke,” the senator’s campaign said on Friday, pushing back against critics who argue she was advocating for voter suppression.

In a campaign appearance in Starkville, Miss., earlier this month, Hyde-Smith told a group that “there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So, I think that's a great idea.”


Her comments were met with laughter by the group.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign says the senator’s “great idea” remark at the end of the video lacked context and argued that it was difficult to hear her clearly without the video’s subtitles.

Hyde-Smith had previously been asked whether she would support opening polling places on college campuses when she made the remark, communications director Melissa Scallan said.

“The great idea she was referring to was the polling places on college campuses,” Scallan said Friday, while also calling it “irresponsible” that people are sharing the video because whoever shot it “has an agenda obviously” and because Hyde-Smith’s voice is in the recording is “very hard to hear.”

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Hyde-Smith is in a runoff election with Democrat Mike Espy, a former agriculture secretary during the Clinton administration, to serve the remaining two years of former Sen. Thad Cochran’s term. Cochran retired earlier this year, citing health reasons, and was replaced by Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant.

Democrats have accused Republicans across the country of attempting to suppress the voting rights of minority groups under the guise of curbing voter fraud, but the issue is much more fraught in the South, which has a history of racial tension and voter discrimination.

Espy did not mince words in a statement on Hyde-Smith’s remarks, noting the historical context of the senator’s message. “For a state like Mississippi, where voting rights were obtained through sweat and blood, everyone should appreciate that this is not a laughing matter,” he said.

Espy, a former congressman who would be the first black senator from Mississippi in over a century, called Hyde-Smith a “walking stereotype who embarrasses our state.”

Hyde-Smith responded to Espy on Twitter, asking: “It’s ok to still have a sense of humor in America isn’t it?”

“These students enjoyed a laugh with Cindy despite out of state social media posts trying to mislead Mississippians,” the post to her Twitter account continued, posting a picture that appeared to be at the same event.

“I know the senator — she’s not a racist and she would not be in favor of suppressing anybody’s right to vote,” Scallan said Friday, insisting again that Hyde-Smith was "not even saying she’s supporting voter suppression at all" and lamenting that the political climate has become so volatile.

“It’s sad that somebody can’t make a joke ... without everybody taking it so seriously,” she said.

Hyde-Smith’s latest remarks to surface are the second controversy she’s faced this week. The same Twitter user, a local publisher, posted a video of Hyde-Smith over the weekend in which she says with a smile that if a supporter she was campaigning with invited her to a “public hanging,” she’d “be on the front row.”

Her use of the phrase was ill-received given Mississippi’s dark history involving racial discrimination and lynchings, but Hyde-Smith brushed it off as an “exaggerated expression of regard” and said that it was “ridiculous” to have given the comments a negative connotation.

“In nearly 20 years of public service nobody has ever accused [Hyde-Smith] of racism or anything — there’s nothing,” Scallan said, arguing that now, “People are reaching for things.”

Despite President Donald Trump carrying deep-red Mississippi by 18 points in the 2016 election, the race between Hyde-Smith and Espy has gotten tight enough that both Republicans and Democrats are placing ad buys in the state, and Trump himself is even mulling a visit to boost Hyde-Smith’s chances. Scallan said the campaign would welcome a visit from Trump, and while she’s heard rumblings of a possible Trump visit, the White House hasn’t confirmed its plans.