Coroners in America
In 2017, I began my years-long obsession with the election of county coroners in America. Unknown to many, a large number of states still elect a county coroner – similar to their process of electing a county Sheriff or Tax Collector. On top of this, most coroner’s are elected to partisan posts. I decided to examine the partisan balance in 2017.
If you are unfamiliar with this analysis, I recommend reading it before moving forward. A common trend I found in 2017 was that many ancestral Democratic areas still had Democratic coroners (as well as other local electeds) despite being Trump and Romney counties. Races would often go uncontested as long as a longtime and non-controversial coroner ran for re-election. Every state elects its coroners at different times; often either in a midterm or Presidential cycle and the same time they elect other county officers.
One notable trend was that as a coroner’s office became open, party politics would often dictate the winner.
- In 2018, I did an updated article looking at the 2017 Pennsylvania Coroner elections, which showed contests lining up more with Presidential contests.
- In 2019, I looked back at the Alabama coroner elections from 2018 – which saw 10 Democrat-held offices go to the GOP; all in Trump counties.
Keeping with these trend, I decided to use this year to look back at the 2019 Mississippi coroner elections; which were held the same day as the state’s Gubernatorial election.
Coroners in Mississippi
Coroner elections in Mississippi take place the same day of the state’s gubernatorial elections. All county offices are up for a vote; which include coroner, county attorney, sheriff, clerk of court, ext. After the 2015 elections, Democrats still held 59 coroner offices to the GOP’s 22.
I was largely expecting to see Democrats lose some offices in 2019’s round of elections. Southern states with inflated Democratic numbers were seeing routine loses with each cycle thanks to retiring democrats or party switches. Sure enough, Democrats lost a batch of coroner offices in 2019’s Mississippi elections. Democrats lost 9 offices to the GOP, two to NPAs, and gained one back from the Republicans.
The Democrats overall lost 11 of their officers, but gained the Webster coroner slot for a net loss of 10. The GOP netted 8 total. Still, this was a relatively modest loss, as Democrats retained a large number of offices in counties that voted not only for Donald Trump but for Mississippi Republican Gubernatorial nominee Tate Reeves.
With the elections wrapped up, almost half of Democratic coroners were in counties that voted for Trump and Reeves. Meanwhile, there was far fewer Republican coroners in Clinton counties.
Looking back at the offices that changed hands, NONE featured an incumbent losing re-election. Four GOP gains came from party switches and five came from open races. Republicans gained the Pike coroner race despite it voting for Clinton and Hood; but the county is GOP for all local offices otherwise. The Democratic win in Webster is really stunning and I will look at that more later in this article.
Another Democrat ran as an NPA for re-election and when the Alcorn coroner retired but all candidates to replace him ran as independents.
For the 21 Democratic coroners in Trump-Reeves counties, most of the holds were thanks to Democrats being unopposed.
The craziest party switch was actually a Democratic gain in Webster county. Despite being 70%+ for Trump and Reeves, the county elected a democratic coroner in contested race. This wasn’t even a case of a Republican coroner having a scandal. Rather, it was an open race. Democrats won the coroner election when the Republican incumbent; who’d won re-election in 2015, decided to retire.
The coroner election came while Reeves was getting 73% for the Gubernatorial election. However, that same day Democrats won a slew of local office; including Sheriff and commission. In fact, a majority of local offices in Webster are still Democratic.
The divide between Webster at the top of the ticket and bottom of the ticket is a common theme across the south. What is amazing, however, was that an open race saw the local office flip from R to D instead of the other way around.
Overall there are still far more coroner offices that will likely move to the GOP once more incumbents retire. For the time being, Democrats retain a majority of coroner offices in the state of Mississippi.