The BBC also visited Brookhaven, in Lincoln County, where Hyde-Smith was born and where Trump won a whopping 72% of votes two years ago.

Party loyalty here was on stark display, with everyone saying either they didn’t vote or they voted for Hyde-Smith.

No-one denied the cost of living had gone up, but few here blamed Trump or Hyde-Smith.

“It always seems, no matter who’s in office, there’s a spike in gas prices. There’s always a war. Things are always going up and down,” said Travis Powe, a 29-year-old logger who voted for Hyde-Smith.

Keith Scott, a Trump supporter, said both parties had been “attacking Trump at all angles, which was why we voted for him”.

Still, Scott said the race in Mississippi was unexpectedly close because the president had not delivered during his second term.

“Trump and his administration did not hold up what they ran on. Bottom line,” Scott said.

“And the people like me that voted for him the first two times, that saw the benefits in his first term, we’ve seen none of it in his second.”