Another Embattled Incumbent Faces a GOP Primary Runoff

GOP Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi struggles to hold onto his seat amid attacks on his voting record ahead of Tuesday’s runoff.

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After edging GOP Rep. Michael Guest in Mississippi’s 3rd District Republican primary earlier this month by fewer than 300 votes, Republican congressional candidate Michael Cassidy pivoted his campaign for the runoff ahead. 

The former Navy fighter pilot and first-time candidate quietly scrubbed his campaign website of a handful of economic policy proposals that he had originally argued would “incentivize family formation”—a $20,000 stipend to married couples to be paid back upon divorce, a maternity leave program with five years of government benefits, and a $250 monthly stipend to married families with children under age 10 and $500 to those with children ages 10-17 years old. He even walked back his previous support for “allowing all citizens to enroll in Medicare, regardless of age”—shorthand for Medicare for all.

Those proposals are now nowhere to be seen on his campaign platform. 

With just hours to go until today’s runoff election, the “American Dream” tab of Cassidy’s campaign site now includes the following disclaimer: “Based on helpful feedback from many conservatives in the 3rd District, I’ve improved my America Dream policies by focusing on lowering the tax burden for working families with children.” In place of his since-deleted policy prescriptions are new proposals aimed at encouraging private businesses to offer maternity leave and expanding the child tax deduction from $3,600 to $10,000 for families not already receiving assistance. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ “People you know, that was a very hectic day, the day after the election. I know at least a couple of the volunteers on my staff,” Cassidy said. “If they had donated to my campaign, it wasn’t—it was a small donation. There wasn’t any like, I don’t really have—I don’t have any corporate PAC money. There’s no—even the people who, who’ve given me a decent amount of money as an individual or a couple, they’re not, they’re not influencing my—what I decide to run on.””

    Hoisting himself on his own petard. This makes absolutely no sense. It’s always funny to read in print when some candidate gets distracted and caught off guard and spits out complete nonsense.

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  2. Avatar photo
    EricRemcon@gmail

    I was a little disappointed with the lack of new stuff at TD yesterday morning. Wow did today make up for it! All four articles (five including TMD of course) were great. 👏

    This is a good, but depressing read for a traditional (not Republican) conservative. This race is a helpful illustration showing that the GOP cannot be called a conservative party anymore. Neither are suitable candidates or principled conservatives. Cassidy sounds like an incompetent, populist, big spender and the incumbent has converted to “MAGA light”.

    TD you have picked a good race to represent the dis-function on the right (I don’t count examples like the Ohio Senate primary which was a MAGA middle school cafeteria food fight).

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  3. Acre00

    Leaving aside the policies he supports, Cassidy seems like a really bad candidate overall. Changing your platform after the initial vote for the runoff strikes me as an error regardless of what it initially said - it couldn't have been that unpopular if it got you this far, and now you have to contend with the very obvious flip-flop problems. And he's completely unprepared for them. It appears like political malpractice based on the info I see.

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