Locals React To Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s Controversial Comment

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – There are two weeks to go until the Senate run-off election.

A comment to supporters on the campaign trail continues to haunt Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

There are strong reactions across the state and nationwide to Senator Hyde-Smith’s ‘public hanging comment.’

She hasn’t apologized.

Her supporters don’t think it’s necessary, but her detractors think otherwise.

In her only statement on the subject, Smith says the comment was an exaggerated expression and turning it into a negative is ridiculous.

Reaction is divided, even locally.

“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” says Smith.

This video was posted to Twitter on Sunday and took off like wildfire on social media.

Smith made these comments on November 2nd, at a campaign rally in Tupelo.

The statement was in reference to a cattle rancher’s support for her in the election.

“A lot of families still mourn the deaths of their loved ones, black and white here in Mississippi, because of lynching, and so it was a real insensitive comment. It was a sick comment,” says District 41 Representative Kabir Karriem.

“There was nothing racial about it. There was nothing mean about it. It was just a joke that she was making and I think people are blowing it up way out of proportion,” says Lowndes County Republican Women Vice President, Nan Lott.

Karriem believes Smith should withdrawal from the race.

And, Lott believes Smith will become Mississippi’s first female Senator.