Hundreds of state and local Republican officials gathered with other supporters Wednesday to hear Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announce plans for his 2023 re-election campaign.
“Today is a great day to be a Mississippian,” Reeves said as he welcomed guests to the Richland facilities of Stribling Equipment, a multi-state heavy equipment dealer serving construction, forestry and related industries.
Poll:Republican Tate Reeves has wider lead over Democrat Brandon Presley in latest poll
The event follows a similar campaign announcement held by the governor Tuesday in Gulfport at the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, an interactive children’s museum.
Reeves said he chose Stribling because it is “a place where people come to work every day,” performing “honest work, for honest pay.”
Bringing new jobs to the state has been at the top of his agenda as governor, Reeves said, adding, “Today more of our people are working in Mississippi than ever before. Our unemployment rate of three-and-a-half percent is the lowest ever.”
The governor highlighted recent business and industrial expansions in Mississippi and said, “Every day we are talking with another company who wants to come to Mississippi or expand in Mississippi.”
He attributed the state’s business success to its people who still believe in traditional, conservative values including family and hard work.
”People make companies succeed and the place you will find the very best people is right here in Mississippi,” Reeves said.
Reeves credited his own work ethic to an example set by his father, Terry Reeves, who grew up poor but later worked his way through college and established his own HVAC contracting business.
That sort of success is “special, but not unusual” for hard-working Mississippians, Reeves said.
Addressing more liberal governors from California, Illinois and New York, Reeves said, “Mississippi is coming to take your jobs and we have no intention of giving them back.”
Of his Democratic opponent for governor Brandon Presley, Reeves said the election of 2023 will be “different than one we have ever seen.” He described Presley as not just a “local yokel Mississippi Democrat,” but rather a candidate with the backing of a “radical, vicious” national party who says, “taxes are good, boys are girls, and our state and nation is racist.”
To back up those claims Reeves said Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsome has recently been in Mississippi, meeting with Presley to “check up on his progress.”
He criticized the media for not reporting that story and asked the crowd, “What else are they not telling you?”
Other accomplishments Reeves touted during his first four years as governor included lowering taxes, improving teacher pay, improving accountability and test scores in the state’s public schools and cutting bureaucratic business regulations.
“Mississippi has the momentum. This is Mississippi’s time,” Reeves said as a rallying call several times.
Introducing Reeves was Frank Bordeaux, Mississippi Republican Party chairman. Of Reeves, Bordeaux said, “I am proud of his record and I am proud of my friend.”
Mississippi First Lady Elee Reeves also praised the hard work of her husband.
“I have watched Tate do what he promised he would do,” she said.
The Rev. David D. Tipton, pastor and district superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church of Mississippi, provided an invocation for the event and guests feasted on a free catfish lunch provided by Penn’s Restaurants following Reeves’ address.
