This year’s election cycle falls within the not-so compelling category, unless unforeseen events happen. The general elections for the four U.S. House seat in the state are expected to be snoozers. Both major political parties have candidates in all four elections. The candidates of the party in power in each district should be respected and given our attention as they attempt to complete near impossible tasks. These elections could be a major upset if the candidates win. Cook Political Report compiles a “partisan voting index” that is specific to each congressional district. Based on historical data and a formula created by Cook political scientists, the index indicates how strongly a state or district leans towards a particular party. All four Mississippi House districts have a partisan voting index in the double digits. The partisan voting indices for both the 2nd Congressional District (where Democrat Bennie Thomson is the incumbent) and the 3rd Congressional District (where Republican Michael Guest the incumbent), are 13 in favor of Bennie Thompson. The 1st District, in which Republican Trent Kelly is the incumbent has a pro-Republican tilt at plus-18. Meanwhile, the 4tb District seat held by Republican Steven Palazzo is at plus-22. This means that there is no “naturally competitive” seat in Mississippi where each candidate would have a reasonable chance to win under normal circumstances. There are other states with higher partisan voting indexes than Mississippi. Another study done by FiveThirtyEight, which also uses historical data to determine that Mississippi has the most inelastic electoral electorate in the nation, is another. The result is that Mississippi’s Republican voters tend to vote Republican and Mississippi’s Democratic-leaning citizens rarely, if ever, switch sides. Cook says that the entire state’s partisan voting index is Republican plus-10. This is in contrast to at least four other states where there are governors of the opposite party. Both Massachusetts and Maryland have a partisan voting index that is higher than Mississippi’s, but they also have Republican governors. Louisiana and Kentucky, which have what appears to be popular Democratic governors, are in the opposite situation. Mississippi, on the other hand has not elected a Democratic governor in Mississippi since 1999. Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. Remember that the elasticity index. Mississippians are more focused on how they vote than those in other states. The NAACP and other groups are requesting federal court intervention this year to make Mississippi’s congressional districts more competitive. To conform to the 2020 U.S. Census population shifts, the state Legislature redrawed the districts. The NAACP is challenging this redistricting on grounds that it reduces the impact of Black voters by placing most of them in 2nd District, and spreading out the rest in a way to minimize their impact on the other districts. The 3rd District could become more competitive if a higher percentage of African American voters, which is the primary voting bloc for the Democrats in the state, was placed there. The lawsuit is unlikely to be heard by the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also includes Mississippi. In the early 2000s, both the Mississippi Legislature’s chambers were controlled by Democrats. This was the last time that any effort was made for more competitive congressional districts. Based on U.S. Census data that year, the state lost one congressional district. Democrats in the state Legislature had one goal: to draw a new map that would allow them to be the solid-blue 2nd District and make the 3rd District more attractive. The 1st district was drawn to cover most of north Mississippi including Tupelo and DeSoto County and extended all the way to suburban Jackson. Baldwyn Democrat Tim Ford, who was the late House Speaker, supported the plan and called it the “tornado area” — not a name that gained support. The plan’s purpose was to increase the number of African American voters in 3rd District to make it more competitive. Lt. Governor. Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who was a Democrat at the time but later switched to Republican Party, stopped the “tornado plan.” With a few exceptions, Mississippi has not seen competitive general elections for its congressional seats since then. Although 2022 may be an exception, history and mathematics are not in their favor.