Google, Facebook ask for refunds from Hyde-Smith

Google is the latest company to demand a refund of a campaign contribution it made to Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith because of what critics say are her racially charged comments, including one about a “public hanging.”

Google late Monday joined a growing list of companies — including Walmart, AT&T and Pfizer — asking for their donations back ahead of Mississippi’s Tuesday election, where Hyde-Smith is facing Democrat Mike Espy, a former U.S. agriculture secretary who is black.

Hyde-Smith, who has been endorsed by President Trump, became the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress in April after she was appointed to replace Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, who stepped down because of health problems.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign has been roiled by revelations that she embraced Confederate history at several points throughout her career. On Nov. 3, Hyde-Smith was recorded saying it’d be a “good idea” to make it more difficult for some groups to vote. Then a video posted to Twitter showed the senator at a Tupelo campaign stop, saying that if a local rancher standing next to her “invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

Mississippi long had a reputation for lynching African Americans, many by hanging.

After Hyde-Smith initially refused to apologize, despite outcry from her colleagues and the public, powerful donors were unsettled. The requests for donation refunds came rolling in, with most donors specifying that they had donated to HydeSmith’s campaign before the video of the “public hanging” comment surfaced. She subsequently made a limited apology during a debate with Espy. saying her remarks had been “twisted” for political purposes.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign has dismissed her troubling comments as jokes or exaggerations. But her words carry a heavy weight in Mississippi, a place with a dark history of racial violence and injustice, including one of the worst lynching records of any U.S. state. Her opponent, Espy, would be its first African American senator since Reconstruction.

American tech giants have been among donors denouncing HydeSmith and asking for donations back. Earlier this month, Google confirmed its PAC had donated $5,000 to the Mississippi Republican on Nov. 2.

“While we support candidates who promote pro-growth policies for business and technology, we do not condone these remarks and would not have made such a contribution had we known about them,” Google said through a spokeswoman at the time.