Ballot splitting among Mississippi Choctaws in Neshoba County

This post is to detail a phenomenon in Mississippi electoral politics: ticket splitting among the Choctaw population in the state. I had noticed this awhile back while looking at old precinct results but never got around to doing a full analysis. Mississippi has a small native population ---- 0.6% as of the latest Census. The highest concentration of the native population in Mississippi is in Neshoba County about 1.5 hours NE of Jackson. According to the latest data from Dave's Redistricting, Neshoba County has 3 precincts with a heavy native-majority (85%+) which gives you a fairly good idea of how this group votes.

Mississippi is famously or perhaps infamously inelastic. Whites and blacks make up nearly all of the voting population and vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Party (in the case of whites) and or for the Democratic Party (in the case of blacks). Precincts where another race is a majority is exceedingly rare. This makes places like Choctaw reservations in Neshoba County or even Little Saigon in East Biloxi --- where Vietnamese migrants make up a substantial % but not quite a majority --- intriguing. 

2000

The 2000 election isn't archived in OpenElections (i.e. no tabular/csv) but it is on Internet Archive. You can find those results here. We can find what we need from the 3 heavily-Choctaw precincts and then subtracting those from the Neshoba total as a comparison. I have attached presidential, Senate, and House results from Neshoba County with totals from Choctaw and non-Choctaw precincts. Then the split between the result at the top of the ticket vs. downballot.

(note rounding if any results look 0.01% off)

So, Gore won Choctaw precincts in Neshoba by 20 points but Democratic candidates at the congressional level lost by 40-50 points. Gore was 60-70 points ahead of Democrats that were running in congressional elections which indicates an unusually high level of ticket splitting. As you see, it far exceeds the ticket splitting margin in non-Choctaw Neshoba precincts, the 3rd district as a whole, and Mississippi statewide. Democratic presidential candidates winning Choctaw precincts while congressional Democratic candidates losing or significantly underperforming in these same precincts will be a theme here.

2004

No analysis for 2004. There wasn't a race at the Senate level and the House race was uncontested by Democrats.

2008

NOTE: you will have to click the image for full size. Couldn't fit it on the page.

Note that the heavily-Choctaw Pearl River precinct was part of the Zephyrhill precinct from 2000. Neshoba results from 2008 can be found here or alternatively here. 

2008 provides perhaps the best example of ballot splitting among Mississippi Choctaws because there was a large disparity in the margin between the presidential and regular Senate election in these communities but not nearly as much in the special Senate or house election. The regularly-scheduled Senate race in 2008 featured an entrenched incumbent while the special Senate and house races did not. This indicates that Choctaws in Mississippi may favor Republican incumbents with seniority (that have worked on tribal issues previously) while otherwise voting for Democrats. 

The Choctaw precincts voted for Obama, Musgrove, and Gill --- all Democrats. However, they gave 30+ year Republican incumbent Thad Cochran a large majority. The D-R margin split in Choctaw precincts for the regular Senate election was -43.2% while the non-Choctaw Neshoba precincts had only a split of -6.4% with Mississippi as a whole at -9.7%. Choctaw voters in Neshoba County split their presidential and regular Senate ballots at a far higher rate than other voters in the county and state. However, the ticket splitting among Choctaw voters in the special Senate and House race were much closer to the county and Mississippi statewide rates, as you can see in the spreadsheet. The special Senate race featured incumbent Republican Roger Wicker that was appointed earlier in the year and the House seat was open ---- i.e. these races featured Republicans with either very little seniority or none. 

2012

(click for full/better quality)

Neshoba results from 2012 can be found here or here.

More of the same. Obama won the Choctaw precincts by 50 points while the Democratic candidate for Senate Albert Gore (not that one) only won these same precincts by 12.6 points. A 37.4 point gap. The ballot splitting in Neshoba County outside of the 3 precincts highlighted was almost nothing ---- the margin gap between the presidential race and Senate race was 0.01% (!). Statewide, Gore was just over 5 points behind Obama. Wicker ran 15 points behind McCain in Choctaw precincts in the 2008 special election but was almost 40 points ahead of Romney in 2012 after developing some seniority in the Senate. 

2016

(click for full/better quality)

Neshoba results from 2016 can be found here or here.

Again, huge overperformance by a downballot Republican. GOP incumbent Gregg Harper won the Choctaw precincts by 14 points while Trump lost these same communities by 46. A 60-point margin. While Harper did a bit better than Trump elsewhere in Neshoba County and in the 3rd district, it was nowhere near the overperformance he had in the heavily-Choctaw precincts.

2020

(click for full/better quality)

Neshoba results for 2020 can be found here or here.

So, the same pattern in the House race but not so much in the Senate race. Michael Guest outran Trump by nearly 30 points in the Choctaw precincts compared to only about 4 points in the non-Choctaw Neshoba precincts and about 8 points in the district as a whole. However, Hyde-Smith ran behind Biden by just about the same margin in the Choctaw precincts as she did in the non-Choctaw Neshoba precincts and in Mississippi statewide. This is interesting because Guest and Hyde-Smith got to DC at about the same time (Guest in a 2017 special and Hyde-Smith appointed then elected in 2018) so neither has much seniority over the other.

Conclusion

Mississippi Choctaws tend to favor Democrats at the presidential level. However, entrenched incumbents (which in Mississippi are almost always Republicans) downballot historically overperform at an unprecedented rate. Generally, these communities split their ballots at a comparable level to the rest of the state and county in races involving Republicans with little or no seniority.  My working theory on this is that incumbent politicians in Congress have the ability to work on tribal issues which wins the support of some Choctaw voters that prioritize this strongly. However, that is more of just a guess and other factors could very well be at play here.