Mississippi is a heavily Republican Deep-South state, with a Republican governor and Republican control of both houses of the state legislature. Two Republicans currently serve in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi and three of the four representatives to the U.S. House are Republican. Trump defeated Clinton by 18 percentage points and Mississippi has a R+9 Partisan Voting Index.

The state has a population of approximately 3 million, 59.1 percent of whom are white and 37 percent of whom are African American. Before the Civil War, most of the Black population was enslaved. From the early 19th century to the 1930s, most residents were Black. Since the 1930s and the Great Migration, the majority of Mississippi’s population has been white, though Mississippi still has the highest percentage of Black residents of any U.S. state.

Mississippi last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1982. There were two elections for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi in 2018. The first was the regularly scheduled election for the seat held by Senator Roger Wicker. In the general election, Senator Wicker faced State House Minority Leader Democrat David Baria, who has been an outspoken proponent of increased funding for public schools and Medicaid expansion. Wicker won the general election, 58.5 percent to Baria’s 39.5 percent.

There was also a non-partisan special election to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the retirement of Senator Thad Cochran. Republican Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant appointed Cindy Hyde-Smith as interim senator to serve in Cochran's seat until voters could select a new senator in a special election in November 2018. Ultimately, Hyde-Smith won the run off election against former Democratic Congressman and former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, 53.6 percent to 46.4 percent.

The last stretch of the race featured overt racism against Espy, who is Black. Hyde-Smith created national outrage over a video showing her saying about a supporter that, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” The video sparked a furor in a state with a history of racism and violence against Blacks, including lynching. Several businesses, including Walmart, demanded Hyde-Smith return their donations after her remark. Hyde-Smith accused Espy of twisting her words for political gain.

News reports also zeroed in on comments Hyde-Smith made praising Confederate soldiers on legislation she endorsed in the State Senate to rename a highway after Confederate President Jefferson Davis and on a photo of her in a Confederate soldier’s cap with the caption ‘Mississippi history at its best!’ Hyde-Smith also attended a “segregation academy” (a term for private schools created in response to public school integration), and her choice to send her daughter to one as well turned out not be the political liability it should have been in part because segregation academies are relatively normal parts of life for much of the white voting base that Hyde-Smith needs to win. Hyde-Smith is the first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi. If Espy had won, he would have been the first Black senator from Mississippi since shortly after the Civil War.

The Mississippi gubernatorial election took place in 2019. Incumbent Governor Phil Bryant was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits. The Democratic Party nominated incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood, the only Democrat holding statewide office in Mississippi. The Republican Party nominated incumbent Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves. In the general election, Reeves defeated Hood by a margin of 5.08 percent, making this the closest gubernatorial election in Mississippi since 1999.

All 52 seats in the Mississippi State Senate, including three vacant seats, were up for election in 2019. 122 seats, including two vacant seats, in the Mississippi House of Representatives. In the state Senate, Republicans won 36 seats to Democrats’ 16, with Republicans gaining a net five seats while Democrats lost two. Republicans won 75 seats in the state House to Democrats’ 46 and independents’ one. Democrats gained a net two seats and Republicans gained a net one seat.