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Presley faces uphill climb to upset Reeves in Mississippi gubernatorial race | Mississippi

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Steve Wilson | – 2023-05-18 13:20:00

(The Center Square) — The biggest question in the upcoming Mississippi governor's race is whether Democrat Brandon Presley can pull off an upset in November over incumbent Republican Tate Reeves.

Presley, who serves as the Northern District Public Service Commissioner, faces two big obstacles to becoming the first Democratic governor to win the office since 1999.

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One of those is name recognition. According to a Mason-Dixon poll of 625 likely voters with a margin of error of 4% commissioned by the in March, 95% of respondents were familiar with Reeves, while only 63% knew Presley.

A Siena College Research Institute poll commissioned by of 783 registered voters with a margin of error of 4.3% a month later didn't show any major improvement, as 64% of respondents said they didn't know that much about him.

The other problem beside name recognition for Presley is a lack of money as the challenger. One area where Reeves excels is fundraising, as he amassed a campaign fund of $9 million according to his latest filing.

While Presley has done well, taking in $1.4 million since the start of the year, he only has $1.6 million in his campaign account, a huge disparity to overcome.

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Glenn Antizzo, a professor of political science at Mississippi College, says that lack of name recognition could be costly for Presley in a number of ways.

“I know he doesn't have a whole lot of money,” Antizzo said. “But he has to be careful not to let the GOP basically create the narrative around him because they have a much bigger war chest, and define who he is before he even gets a to say, you know, ‘Hi, my name is Brandon Presley.'”

Despite the lack of name recognition, Reeves' unfavorability ratings in both polls might trend to a closer race. In the Mason-Dixon poll, 56% of respondents had an unfavorable or neutral view of the governor while it was 57% that had an unfavorable or didn't know enough to say rating.

Antizzo says the nation's trend toward tribal, overly-partisan is definitely part of the equation in the Magnolia . He says that might Reeves overcome his sizable unfavorability ratings in polls with GOP voters who dislike him.

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“That pretty much everybody wants to win, wants their team to win and wants the other team to lose,” Antizzo said. “And I think at the end of the day, a lot of the people who probably don't like Reeves but are more on the conservative side are gonna hold their nose and vote for him anyway.”

There are factors from Reeves' 2019 victory that won't be in play November.

Reeves had to fend off a bruising primary from former state Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller Jr. that he defeated by a 54.1% to 45.9% vote in the GOP primary.

This time, he has no well-funded, serious challenger. Another factor in 2019 being such a close race was the entrance into the field of the Democrats' last remaining statewide officeholder.

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Former Democratic state Attorney General Jim Hood had much better name recognition (only 2% of respondents in a 2019 Mason-Dixon poll didn't know who he was) than Presley. He was unable to pull off perhaps the Democrats' best chance of turning the governor's mansion blue.

Reeves won with 51.9% of the vote in that race.

Where Hood faltered was his home area of northeast Mississippi, a once-traditional Democrat stronghold that is also home to Presley. In the nine counties in the northeast corner of the state, Hood only managed more than 40% of the vote in one of them, Lee County (). The rest went for Reeves by huge margins.

Another area where Reeves dominated was in the six coastal counties. Hood only managed to eclipse 40% of the vote in Harrison County, with Reeves rolling up huge victories elsewhere.

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Antizzo says that the Republicans will likely try to tie the populist Presley, who refers to himself as a proud “New Deal Democrat” to the national Democratic Party. Former President Donald Trump carried Mississippi with 57.6% of the vote in the 2020 election.

“He's (Presley) a traditional Mississippi Democrat, just slightly left of center,” Antizzo said. “But as you could tell from the governor's announcement speech, he was already starting down that road of framing Presley as you know, some AOC clone.”

AOC is the acronym given to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY.

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The Center Square

Attorneys general say EPA water rule is costly and unlawful | Arkansas

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Kim Jarrett | – 2024-03-27 12:00:00

(The Center Square) – A proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule that would monitor indirect wastewater discharges from slaughterhouses is unlawful and would be costly to businesses, 27 attorneys general said in a letter to the agencies.

The EPA monitors wastewater discharge from 171 of the 5,055 meat and poultry product facilities in the United States, according to the letter led by Kansas Kris Kobach and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin. The new rule would affect nearly 3,800 producers, some -owned farms in Arkansas, according to Griffin.

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Poultry generates the most cash receipts of any other agricultural product in Arkansas, according to information from the Arkansas Farm . One in four agrarian jobs are in poultry production, according to the Farm Bureau.

“The EPA's proposed rule would add additional regulations on processing plants with indirect wastewater discharges—discharges that are already treated by a municipal or other wastewater treatment facility, which are themselves subject to EPA regulations,” the attorneys general said in the letter. “That's an extra layer of regulation that doesn't accomplish anything. And the EPA lacks the legal authority to impose such regulations.”

The rule is part of a settlement of a North Carolina filed against the EPA by several environmental groups of the discharge of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, into the .

“Under the consent decree, EPA has obligations to sign a notice of proposed rulemaking by December 13, 2023 and to sign a taking final action on the proposal by August 31, 2025,” the agency said in its filing.

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Some judges have questioned using a settlement as the basis of rulemaking, according to the attorneys general.

“Finally, it appears that EPA is relying primarily on data put together by the groups that were suing them to up with this rule,” the letter said. “This practice not only puts forward poor policy but also harms the integrity of our judicial system. This administration must stop abusing the legal system in order to achieve results it otherwise cannot get.”

The EPA said in its filing the rule would “improve water quality and protect human health and the by reducing the discharge of nutrients and other pollutants to the nation's surface waters.” The agency met with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council, North American Meat Institute, the North American Renderers Association and the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, the agency said.

“The preferred option is estimated to cost $232 million annually and reduce pollutant discharges by approximately 100 million pounds per year,” EPA said.

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16 states, led by Gulf states, sue Biden administration over LNG export ban | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Bethany Blankley | contributor – 2024-03-22 06:39:00

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The Center Square

Attorneys general coalition ask Ninth Circuit to intervene in Mayorkas asylum case | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Bethany Blankley | contributor – 2024-03-20 11:27:00

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