Closed Doors, Lost Voices, Greed and Gatekeeping
How Institutional Power and Political Elitism Are Suffocating Mississippi’s Democratic Future
For months, I wrestled with writing this piece, and even more with the thought of sharing it. But sometimes you must have the courage to tell your own story—to speak your own truth. Not the story others try to write for you. Not the story that feels comfortable and safe. Not the version that’s been filtered through political operatives, party talking points, or editorial gatekeepers. Just the truth, plain and unvarnished.
So, here’s mine.
The Gatekeeper's Greeting
On a warm Spring morning in 2023, not long after I’d announced my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, I was behind the wheel of my black Chevy Tahoe headed north along Highway 61, deep in the Mississippi Delta. I had just reached the stretch of road where the highway expands from two lanes to four, right before merging into the Highway 82 Greenville Bypass. The sun had barely cleared the horizon. Tractors were already rumbling to life in the fields on either side of the highway. Farmers were turning the soil, prepping for planting season. I inhaled deeply and smiled. The sweetness of the air, the warmth of the sun, and the deep, earthy scent of the Delta dirt reminded me that after 21-years of service around the world and three years of law school in DC, I was finally home—in my Mississippi Delta.
Although I’d already been here, working as a public interest lawyer, representing low-income community members in the area for a couple of years, it still felt like a fitting metaphor for the beginning of something new, something full of promise.
Tracey Rosebud, a member of the State House of Representatives was on the phone. He was one of the first members of the state legislature I was reaching out to. His district was in the Delta, and he was someone I'd hoped would support my candidacy. After all, I was born and raised in the Delta and the only Democrat in the race challenging a deeply entrenched Republican incumbent. As I began the call with a polite “Good morning,” I didn’t even get the chance to finish my sentence before I was cut off.
“I know who you are,” his voice snapped. “We're all pissed at you! Who the hell do you think you are putting your name on the ballot without our permission? You need to go through us gatekeepers.” He went on to exclaim that he wasn’t going to help me in his district—and that his constituents weren’t going to come out and support me unless he told them to.
First, I was surprised that he would so proudly label himself a “gatekeeper”—as if that were a badge of honor rather than a warning sign. Second, the full weight of what I was up against began to crystallize. It wasn’t just going to be a fight against the Republican machine. It was going to be a fight against the political gatekeepers of my own party.
It was a jarring moment—not just for what was said, but for what it revealed. In his mind, the voters didn’t belong to themselves. They belonged to him. Their support wasn’t something to be earned—it was something to be controlled. That kind of thinking is exactly what’s wrong with our politics. When elected officials treat communities like their personal property—leveraging people’s voices as bargaining chips in their own power games—we don’t just lose elections. We lose democracy.
And in that moment, I couldn’t help but think about the long, hard fight Mississippians have waged for the right to have a voice in their own future. I thought about Fannie Lou Hamer, who was beaten and brutalized for daring to demand that everyday people—not party bosses—have a seat at the table. I thought about Medgar Evers, who gave his life to challenge the lie that power must only flow through certain hands. I thought about all the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement who risked everything to crack open the doors of participation that some now seem determined to close again.
They fought to break the chains of voter suppression and gatekeeping—so that no man, no matter his title, could ever again claim to own the will of the people.
And here I was, in 2023, being told by an elected official that the people wouldn’t support me unless he gave them permission. That’s not democracy. That’s political plantationism. And I didn’t spend 21 years in uniform fighting for this country—only to come home and be told I needed to ask for permission to serve the very people who raised me.
Closed Doors: A System Rigged From Within
The phone call with Representative Rosebud wasn’t an anomaly. It was a warning. The closed doors of our political system aren’t always physical—they’re ideological, procedural, and personal. In Mississippi, too many political insiders treat the ballot like their own private property. Candidacies must be sanctioned. Ambitions must be approved.
It’s an unwritten rule: if you want to run, you’d better ask permission first. And if you dare show up without that blessing—or a bag of money—the system will make you pay for it. And God forbid you show back up after serving 21 years on active duty thinking you can somehow continue your service in small, underserved communities just like the one that raised you. Support will evaporate. Allies will go silent. Donors will be warned off. You won’t get a fair shot—you’ll get shut out.
Lost Voices: The Collateral Damage of Control
But this isn’t just about me. This is about every bold, qualified, community-rooted Mississippian who has ever been told to “wait your turn.” It’s about the single mother who organizes in her neighborhood, the veteran who served this country with honor, the schoolteacher with solutions and heart—but no political pedigree.
When the political establishment guards the gates so tightly, we don’t just lose candidates—we lose voices. We lose perspective. We lose energy. We lose hope. In Mississippi’s 2023 statewide elections alone, 10 Republicans ran unopposed in the State Senate and 66 Republicans ran unopposed in the House of Representatives. That’s not just a missed opportunity—that’s political abandonment. That’s what happens when gatekeeping silences potential before it even has the chance to speak. And it gets to a point where the party doesn’t just lack a bench—it’s created a climate where the next generation of leaders is too intimidated to even step up to bat, afraid they’ll be punished, ignored, or publicly ridiculed for daring to lead without permission.
And everyday people in this state begin to feel that politics isn’t for them—it’s for the already anointed.
Greed: When Money Talks, Democracy Walks
Let’s be real—money is the grease in the political machine. But in Mississippi, that grease has become glue. National committees and party insiders aren’t asking who’s the most rooted in the community. They’re asking who’s raised the most money—before the race has even begun.
If you can’t write your own check or dial for dollars from high-powered donors, you’re labeled “not viable.” But here’s the truth they don’t want to say out loud: the system isn’t designed to support bold candidates from humble beginnings. It’s designed to replicate itself.
That’s not a movement. That’s a business model.
On April 5, 2024, I received a text message from Brandon Presley inviting me to a fundraiser he was hosting in his hometown of Nettleton for Congressman Bennie Thompson. I was glad to receive the invitation. Just a year earlier, I had campaigned for Brandon—wore his t-shirt at the Neshoba County Fair and championed his candidacy across the state while I was campaigning for myself. I had voted for Congressman Thompson since I first cast a ballot at 19 years old in my hometown of Rolling Fork—via an absentee ballot in the middle of combat in Tikrit, Iraq, and during deployments across Europe and Asia. So, I made the nearly four-hour drive from Vicksburg to Nettleton to show my support.
Joining me was a young campaign staffer I had just brought onto the team—a recent graduate of Mississippi Valley State University, a proud new father with aspirations of running for office himself. He was looking for work to support his growing family. I was paying him out of my own pocket because raising money for the campaign was tough—especially as an outsider trying to break through—but also because I believed in giving folks like him a shot, just as others had done for me throughout my life. We both believed we were walking into a room that reflected the true spirit of the Democratic Party—a place where effort, service, and grassroots determination would be respected.
Several months later, we’d get a clearer picture of how the system really works.
At the fundraiser, the host mentioned that he and his wife were moving into a new home in Water Valley later that summer. He told me that once they got settled, he’d be happy to host a fundraiser for my campaign in August. I appreciated the offer, thanked him, and let him know I’d follow up in a few weeks to coordinate.
In early August, we did just that—only to be told that the fundraiser would no longer happen because he needed to host another one at his new home… for Congressman Thompson.
Then on September 5, 2024, the Dirt Road Democrats PAC—which he co-chaired—announced a major six-figure investment to support Democratic candidates across Georgia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
The PAC was created to uplift rural candidates—those often overlooked by national donors and party infrastructure. Aside from Congressman Thompson, who consistently wins handily in his deep-blue 2nd Congressional District, I was one of the only Democrats on the ballot in Mississippi—running in a statewide race that rural voters would decide.
And yet, my campaign didn’t receive a single dime.
The very next day, September 6th, he hosted a fundraiser for Congressman Thompson at his new home in Water Valley.
Just a few days later, on September 9th, the Dirt Road Dems PAC made a direct contribution to Congressman Thompson’s campaign.
So much for supporting rural candidates.
When the mission says “uplift the overlooked,” but the money goes to the already-entrenched, that’s not grassroots strategy—it’s gatekeeping dressed up as generosity.
When money talks, democracy walks.
And in this case, it walked right past the people who needed it most.
But this wasn’t just about money—it was about control. And control, in Mississippi politics, is enforced through gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping: A Party That Eats Its Own
The phrase I heard on that call—“You need to go through us gatekeepers”—continued to echo in my mind. Because it wasn’t just about me. It was a confession. An admission that some party insiders don’t see themselves as public servants—they see themselves as landlords of democracy. In their eyes, they own the field, the players, and the scoreboard.
Gatekeeping is how the party protects its fragile status quo—by silencing anyone who might disrupt it. Candidates who challenge convention or dare to ask hard questions are often ignored, undermined, or outright punished.
And the worst part? All of this happens while voters are told, with a straight face, that this is the best we can do.
That reality hit home in a particularly painful way during the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
That year marked the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer—a time when everyday Mississippians risked their lives to challenge Jim Crow, register Black voters, and speak truth to power. It was the summer Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper from Ruleville in the Mississippi Delta, traveled to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. She didn’t bring money. She didn’t bring a political machine. She brought moral clarity and a demand for justice. She stood before the nation and declared, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Sixty years later, I walked into the 2024 DNC in Chicago not as a spectator, but as a delegate—a son of the Mississippi Delta, just like Fannie Lou. I had spent more than a year on the campaign trail, sharing my story, challenging power, and stepping up to serve in a U.S. Senate race no one else dared to enter. I was now the Democratic Nominee.
I traveled with the Mississippi Delegation by train from Jackson to Chicago, arriving at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Throughout the week, I attended delegation breakfasts—from Vermont to Guam to New Mexico—promoting my candidacy and raising support from Democrats around the country who were inspired by a veteran and attorney from cotton fields and combat zones, fighting to change the state he loved.
But these meetings weren’t always convenient. Some weren’t even in the same hotel. The Vermont delegation met at the Palmer House Hilton on Monroe Street. Massachusetts gathered at the Sheraton on North Water Street. The Virginia breakfast was back at the Hyatt, but the Guam breakfast was across town. Each morning, I hustled across downtown Chicago—navigating elevators, skybridges, and early security lines—to meet Democrats who might listen to my story and join the cause.
At each stop, I was received with warmth. Delegates donated on the spot or scanned my campaign QR code. They were moved by the idea that someone from the Mississippi Delta—someone who had served his country and returned home to serve again—was stepping up to fight for change in one of the toughest Senate races in the country.
But that warm reception wasn’t universal.
On Thursday morning, August 22nd, after attending the Idaho and Hawaii delegation breakfasts—both held at the Hyatt—I was crossing the skybridge when I was stopped by a fellow Mississippi delegate, someone who also sits on the State Party Executive Committee. She looked rattled and asked if I’d heard what had just been said at our own Mississippi delegation breakfast.
I told her no—I’d been with the Hawaii delegation in a different ballroom.
She leaned in and said that Mississippi’s longest-serving, highest-ranking elected Democrat had just stood before the delegation and declared he wouldn’t support my campaign. His reason? “He hasn’t earned it.”
I was stunned. As the sunlight poured through the windows of the skybridge, her words hung in the air like a cold wind.
“He hasn’t earned it.”
This, during the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer.
I thought about the 21 years I served on active duty in the U.S. Army. The 36 months I spent at war—missing birthdays, funerals, and first steps. The soldiers I led. The ones who came home in flag-draped caskets. I thought about the cotton I chopped as a boy in the Delta. The courtrooms I stood in as a lawyer. The law degrees I earned. The clients I’ve fought for every step of the way.
I thought about how, as my military career was winding down, I launched a mentorship program to bring young people from underserved communities in the Delta to Washington, D.C.—to the very office of the Congressman who now refused to support me. I thought about how, during my time working at the White House, his office would regularly call me to arrange West Wing tours for his friends and constituents. And I thought about how he was the very first person I told I planned to run for the U.S. Senate—six months before I announced—and how I asked him for his support.
And I wondered what Fannie Lou Hamer would say if she were here to witness what that same Democratic establishment had just done to a Delta son who dared to step forward.
Still—“he hasn’t earned it.”
I left the skybridge and made my way to a table in the second-floor foyer of the Hyatt, where I was scheduled to meet with the Chair of the Mississippi Democratic Party. I needed answers.
As I sat down and prepared to ask the hard question, another young Mississippian approached our table—an ambitious leader from East Mississippi, part of a new generation trying to break through. I politely asked him to give us a moment.
Then I turned to the Chair and asked: Was it true that my own Congressman stood before a room full of Democrats and told them not to support me?
The Chair looked me in the eyes and said, “Yes.”
Let me be clear: it wasn’t the lack of support that bothered me. People have a right to back whomever they choose. That’s democracy. What stung deeply was knowing that he didn’t just withhold support—he actively encouraged others to do the same. At the national convention, no less. From the stage. Against the party’s own nominee for U.S. Senate.
That wasn’t neutrality. That was sabotage.
And as “he hasn’t earned it” echoed in my mind, it felt eerily familiar. Months earlier, on April 13th, at the Mississippi Democratic Party’s 2nd Congressional District Convention in Vicksburg, the then-chair introduced me by saying, “We support Democrats, but they have to earn it.”
Those same side-eyes, whispered doubts, and closed doors followed me throughout the campaign—echoed by insiders and party elites more committed to preserving their own power than supporting someone fighting for working Mississippians.
When I asked the State Chair why this resistance persisted, he told me candidly: some folks felt like I was trying to walk straight to the head of the table. In other words, I wasn’t “waiting my turn.”
But when the table has been set for the same few people over and over—while others are left out in the cold—you come to realize that maybe the goal isn’t to wait your turn. Maybe the goal is to build a new table altogether—one with enough seats for everyone. A table where lived experience matters just as much as connections, where service counts more than status, and where the doors aren’t guarded by gatekeepers—but opened by the people themselves.
I wasn’t running for the U.S. Senate out of ego or ambition. I was running because I saw a void. I saw a need. And I believed, deep in my bones, that I could be someone Mississippians could count on in the Senate—just as they had counted on him for decades in the House. As a Delta boy, I was trying to step up and make a difference. I didn’t expect him to hand me anything. But I never expected him to stand in my way either—especially when no one else had stepped up.
And I started to wonder:
Was growing up poor in the Mississippi Delta a scarlet letter to some?
Was I from the wrong social class in their eyes?
Was my military service not enough—as echoed by one insider who said, “We don’t give a f**k about your service”?
Was being the first in my family to graduate high school and earn two law degrees not enough?
Was standing beside a single mother in the dead of winter as she prepared to walk into court to fight her eviction not enough?
Was fighting for and winning millions of dollars for poor farmworkers in the Delta as a lawyer not enough?
And was it not enough when, in 2023, the party chair asked me to pause my Senate campaign and run for Secretary of State—at the last minute, with less than 60 days until Election Day—because no one else would step up to give voters an option at the polls?
Was that deliberate sacrifice not enough of a commitment to the cause? Not enough of a demonstration of loyalty?
In that moment, the phrase “he hasn’t earned it” stopped sounding like a critique of qualifications—and started sounding like a defense of hierarchy. A warning. A message: this party isn’t built to welcome you. It’s built to outlast you.
Because in the end, it wasn’t just political. It was personal.
But even more than that—it was a symptom of gatekeeping.
A party culture that, far too often, devours its own.
When the Referees Join the Other Team
And then, just a few weeks later—as if to drive the point home—another blow came from a different direction.
A man named Other Cain, a member of the Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Committee—someone whose role is supposed to be rooted in neutrality and support—publicly posted this about me: “Ty Pinkins is DOA. Campaign is over. Going against the grain. It was already an uphill battle. Failed candidate. Rookie mistake. Sit at someone’s feet. Study to show thyself approved. Learn something. Arrogance is never the answer.”
This wasn’t just personal—it was political malpractice.
The irony? The same Executive Committee member who launched that attack also served on the party’s Committee for Young Democrats, the Committee for Affirmative Action, the Committee for Campaigns, and the Committee for Party Development. These are the very committees tasked with building the future of the party, fostering inclusion, and developing the next generation of leaders. And yet here was one of their own publicly ridiculing a candidate who embodies all of those values.
If you're in a leadership position in a state like Mississippi—and you're using your power to undermine the only Democrat on the statewide ballot—you’re not leading. You’re gatekeeping. And you’re dragging our democracy down with you.
Let that sink in.
No Republican could have launched a more condescending or dismissive attack. I was the Democratic Nominee. The only candidate standing between a Republican stronghold and six more years of neglect for Mississippi’s working families. And yet it was leaders within my own party who were leading the opposition.
What We’re Fighting For: A Better Way
Mississippi deserves better. So does our democracy.
We need a political culture that rewards courage—not compliance. One that empowers local communities—not national consultants. One that opens the door to new voices instead of slamming it shut and demanding deference to power.
If we’re serious about building a party and a democracy that reflect the people of Mississippi—not the power brokers—we must end the reign of political gatekeepers and make candidacy accessible to anyone with passion, vision, and community support. We must rebuild funding pipelines that prioritize small-dollar donors and grassroots organizing over insider connections. We must demand full transparency from state and national parties on how they support—or exclude—candidates. And we must hold our own party accountable when it starts acting more like a cartel than a community.
A Final Word: From the Delta to D.C.
I come from the Mississippi Delta—a place where people still believe in hard work, fairness, and the power of showing up. I’ve chopped cotton in those fields. I’ve worn this nation’s uniform. I’ve served in the White House under Presidents of both parties. And I’ve walked into rooms where people doubted me the moment I stepped inside.
So let me say this plainly: I didn’t need permission to run for office then, and I don’t need it now.
I didn’t win my last election. But I haven’t given up—because too much is at stake.
I’m running again for the United States Senate in 2026. Not with the backing of political insiders. Not with the blessing of party officials. And certainly not with the support of my own congressman, who is busy campaigning around the state for a millionaire’s son—the handpicked candidate of the monied elites and party establishment. Money talks!
That’s fine.
Because I’m not running for them. I’m running for the people who’ve never had a millionaire’s son speak for them. I’m running for working families across Mississippi—from DeSoto to the Delta to the Gulf Coast. I’m running for folks in communities where poverty isn’t a headline—it’s a daily reality. I’m running for the single mother working two jobs who doesn’t have time to lobby for better healthcare, because she’s too busy trying to survive.
I’m running for those who’ve been told to wait their turn, to sit down, or to go through gatekeepers. I’m running because Mississippi deserves a fighter—someone who knows what it’s like to be unheard, underestimated, and counted out… and to rise anyway.
I’m running because I still believe in us.
Just the other day, I found myself once again driving north on Highway 61. I had just crossed the Yazoo River Bridge, leaving Vicksburg and heading into the Delta. The corn was tall. The sun was high. A smile crept across my face. I inhaled deeply. The sweetness of the air, the warmth of the sun, and the deep, earthy scent of Delta soil reminded me: I am home—in my Mississippi. And I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
So, to those who say I haven’t “earned it”—watch me.
To the people of Mississippi—I’m still here. And I’m still fighting. For you. For us. For a better future.
Let’s build it together. Join the movement. Share this message. And support this campaign by visiting www.TyPinkins.com
Thank you for writing this!! It’s important to see behind the curtain. We all know in our bones that Republican domination in our state isn’t just about them, but is also about the failure of the Democrats!!! I wish you well in your campaign!!
Thank you.. this is very helpful. I have been trying to understand the MS Democratic party. So many candidates switch parties!!