JACKSON, Miss. — Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith won a racially polarizing election here Tuesday night after never fully apologizing for comments in which she suggested she would be willing to sit in the front row at a public hanging.
Then on Wednesday, Senate Republicans moved to confirm a judicial nominee who, as an attorney, defended a North Carolina voter identification law deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court because it sought to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
The back-to-back developments this week offer a stark illustration of the state of the Republican Party and racial politics.