Based on state Auditor Shad White’s logic, it is time to clean house of all Republican and Democratic Mississippi politicians on both the state and federal level.
At a recent public hearing about legislative redistricting, the Republican White argued that Mississippi’s congressional map should be redrawn with the intention of removing U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson from office. White said Thompson has done a poor job representing the 2nd District, which stretches through the Delta, along the Mississippi River and into Jackson.
Since the April U.S. Supreme Court decision that erased protections for Black voting strength, many in Mississippi’s Republican leadership have called for redrawing the state’s four congressional districts to ensure the defeat of Thompson, the state’s only Black member of Congress.
White, who is expected to run for governor in 2027, has been particularly vocal in the call to unseat Thompson, also the state’s only Democratic congressional member. It has appeared Republican leaders wanted Thompson removed for solely partisan reasons.
But at the redistricting hearing, White said Thompson should be removed because he is not adequately representing his district, which includes the poverty-stricken Delta.
Placing blame for Delta on Bennie Thompson
“I travel all over this state, but I travel a ton in the Delta, too…,” White said at the redistricting hearing recently at the Mississippi Capitol. “The Delta has been at the bottom of far too many rankings for far too long, and the Delta deserves better leadership than Bennie Thompson. It just does. The Delta deserves a congressman who’s going to deliver.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., talks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 10, 2024, in Washington. Credit: AP Photo/Mariam ZuhaibIt should be pointed out that the Delta can vote for someone other than Thompson. Delta voters will have that opportunity in November when Republican Ron Eller challenges him. What White is most likely proposing is to split up the Delta’s Black population through redistricting.
Granted, Thompson, has been representing most of the Mississippi Delta for a long time – first elected in 1993. And, yes, the Mississippi Delta has more than its share of problems and has had those problems for generations.
But blaming all of the Delta’s problems on one U.S. House member – one of 435 – seems disingenuous.
Thompson’s 2nd District, which covers western Mississippi, is one of the nation’s poorest districts. It is ranked as having the sixth highest poverty rate at 25%, the website Overflow Data reported in July 2025, based on U.S. Census information.
Using Shad White’s logic, what about other politicians?
But all four Mississippi congressional districts have poverty rates significantly higher than the national average of 12.5%, according to the Coalition on Human Needs.
Are the state’s three Republican congressmen – Trent Kelly, Michael Guest and Mike Ezell – falling down on their jobs and also needing to be replaced, using White’s logic?
And what about the state’s two U.S. senators – Republicans Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith – who are two of 100, giving them the opportunity to have much more influence than Thompson?
Why hasn’t Wicker, who has been in the Senate since 2007, and Hyde-Smith who has been in the Senate since 2018, had more of an impact on the 2nd District?
And don’t forget before Wicker and Hyde-Smith, Mississippi’s senators were Republicans Trent Lott, who was elected in 1988, and Thad Cochran, elected in 1978.
Cochran was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, and Lott was a former Senate majority leader. With all that power, why couldn’t they fix the 2nd District?
And of course on the state level, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has had two terms as governor and two as lieutenant governor – two of the most impactful policymaking posts in state government. And White’s old boss – Phil Bryant – served two terms as governor and one as lieutenant governor.
Couldn’t they fix the 2nd District – or for that matter the state?
Remember, Mississippi routinely has the first or second highest poverty rate.
The problems facing Mississippi, including the 2nd District, are complex. To think one politician can fix them all is fanciful, especially when the politician is one U.S. House member whose proposed fixes are consistently stymied by Mississippi’s Republican majority.
Criticism of Trump makes Bennie Thompson a target
Perhaps the real reason Thompson is in the crosshairs of Mississippi’s Republican leadership is that he is the state’s highest-profile critic of their party leader and often-times political benefactor – Republican President Donald Trump.
Thompson led the House committee that assigned a large part of the blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Trump and cited him for being the first presidential candidate in U.S. history to attempt to overturn the results of a national election.
But perhaps it sounds a lot better for White to say Bennie Thompson is responsible for the poverty in the 2nd District than to say he should be replaced because he has been critical of President Trump.
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