Mississippi Republican tells MSNBC why he's voting for Democrat Mike Espy -- and hanging Cindy Hyde-Smith out to dry

Mississippi Republican voter Cliff Heaton hung Cindy Hyde-Smith out to dry on Wednesday, telling MSNBC why he plans to vote for Democrat Mike Espy in Tuesday's runoff Senate election.

"I'm absolutely a Republican by nature," Heaton told reporter Vaughn Hillyard. "On Tuesday I'm voting for Mike Espy."

Espy "took over from a Republican who was worthless, in my opinion," Heaton said, praising Espy's tenure as congressman. But Heaton also had harsh words for Hyde-Smith's racially-tinged comments about public hangings and voter suppression, saying that she was alienating Republicans who would ordinarily support her.

"I thought the comments were very much out of line," he said. "I have certain things in my vocabulary that I try my hardest not to say, but public hanging is not one of them. That's not anything I would have ever envisioned saying."

"I've seen a lot of Republicans who were die-hard Cindy Smith people that over the last two weeks are willing to talk about Mike Espy and can't believe that Cindy Hyde-Smith made those comments," Heaton added. "They are scared to death of what she's going to say down the road."

Watch the video below.