Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith narrow victory in Mississippi's Senate race could indicate a Democratic resurgence in the South

• Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith defeated Democrat Mike Espy on Tuesday in a Mississippi Senate race defined by the Republican's racially-charged comments.
• Hyde-Smith's runoff victory in the last race of the midterm elections was far from resounding in a deep red state, and may indicate increasing support for Democrats in the South.
• Espy, who was vying to become Mississippi's first black senator since the end of the Civil War, was buoyed by strong turnout among the state's large black electorate.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith defeated Democrat Mike Espy in Mississippi's Senate runoff on Tuesday by an unusually small margin in the deep red state after transforming the contest into something of a referendum on Mississippi's racist past with jokes about public hangings and voter suppression.

Hyde-Smith's runoff victory in the last race of the midterm elections was far from resounding - she took 54% of the vote to Espy's 46% - in a state that President Donald Trump won by nearly 18 points two years ago. The result came as a relief to Republicans, who will have 53 senators to Democrats' 47 in the new Congress - a two seat gain.

In the three weeks since Election Day, the Mississippi race became defined by comments Hyde-Smith made on the campaign trail, including her statement that if a supporter asked her to attend "a public hanging, I'd be on the front row," that dredged up the state's dark history of racial violence and oppression.

Espy, who would have become the state's first black senator since the end of the Civil War, gained seven points over the Nov. 6 vote, in which 58% of the electorate supported Hyde-Smith and another GOP candidate, while 42% voted for Espy. (The runoff was triggered because no candidate received 50% of the vote).

Part of Espy's boost can be attributed to energized black voters, who showed up in greater numbers in many parts of the state than they did three weeks ago, according to exit polling. And while 60% of Mississippi's voting-age population is white, the state has the largest share of black voters in the country.

Espy framed Hyde-Smith's missteps, and subsequent revelations that she attended a "segregation academy" and celebrated the Confederacy, as an embarrassment to the state.

"It's given our state another black eye that we don't need. It's just rejuvenated old stereotypes that we don't need anymore," Espy said of Hyde-Smith's remarks in a debate last week.

Read more: 'Another black eye': Accusations of racism swirl in contentious Mississippi Senate runoff

The former Clinton administration agriculture secretary also did better in suburban areas (full of college-educated white voters), including outside of Memphis and Jackson, than Barack Obama did in 2008.

Overall, Hyde-Smith, the state's first female senator, received 87% of the GOP voters who turned out for the election three weeks ago, while Espy received an impressive 101% of Democratic votes compared to those who voted earlier this month. And this came after Republicans directed significant resources to boost Hyde-Smith, including several presidential rallies, tweets, and an injection of GOP election staffers.

The unusually competitive Mississippi race could indicate a favorable trend for Democrats in the South. Espy is the third black Democrat to come close to winning a big ticket contest in the South this year, after Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum came up short in Georgia and Florida's gubernatorial races.

And it comes a year after neighboring Alabama elected its first Democratic senator in a quarter-century. Notably, Alabama Democrat Doug Jones' stunning victory in last year's special election was facilitated in part by a significant surge in black voter turnout. Black Alabamians made up a larger percentage of the electorate in that contest than they did in both 2008 and 2012 when Barack Obama was on the ballot. (96% of black voters cast their ballots for Jones).

But Jones' opponent, right-wing Republican Roy Moore, was a particularly weak candidate and was partially crushed under the weight of a sexual-assault scandal and a long record of racial animosity.