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American politician (born 1953)

Gary Eugene Taylor (born September 17, 1953) is an American politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1989 to 2011 and previously a member of the Mississippi Senate from 1983 to 1989. He was defeated for re election in 2010 by State Representative Steven Palazzo. In 2014, he changed his long time membership from the Democratic Party, becoming a Republican. The same year, he ran for election against Palazzo to return to the House of Representatives. Securing only 43 percent of the vote, Taylor lost in the primary. Following his congressional career, Taylor served on the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission until 2014. He consulted for the defense industry before becoming a director for Overseas Shipholding Group in 2018.

After one term in the State Senate, Taylor ran as the Democratic candidate to succeed Republican incumbent and House Minority Whip Trent Lott in what was then the 5th District when Lott made a successful run for the Senate. He lost to Harrison County Sheriff Larkin I. Smith by almost 10 points. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee offered very little help to Taylor, believing the district to be too heavily Republican. Vice President George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis by approximately a 70 to 30 margin in the district, and Lott beat Wayne Dowdy by a similar margin in the Senate race. Although about 30,000 Bush and Lott voters split their tickets to vote for Taylor, he could not overcome the Republican tide in the district.

Smith died in a plane crash eight months later. In the special election to fill Smith's seat, Taylor picked up 42 percent of the vote to lead Republican Thomas H. Anderson, Jr. and Democrat Mike Moore in the first round. Some leading Democrats had tried to convince Taylor to stand aside and not seek the position in deference to Moore, who was the state's Attorney General and who was also a Gulf Coast resident, but Taylor doubled Moore's vote total on the first ballot. Two weeks later, Taylor beat Anderson, Lott's Chief of Staff, with 65 percent of the vote. Taylor took office on October 24, 1989.

Taylor won a full term in 1990 with 81 percent of the vote against realtor Sheila Smith, the widow of his predecessor in the House. He easily turned back spirited reelection challenges in 1992, 1994 and 1996, taking over 60 percent of the vote each time. However, he was reelected in 1998 with 77 percent of the vote and was reelected five more times after that by an average of 70 percent of the vote. His district was renumbered the 4th after the 2000 redistricting cost Mississippi a congressional seat.

Taylor was defeated by Republican state representative Steven Palazzo on November 2, 2010. His vote against Barack Obama for president in 2008 became a campaign issue when Taylor released campaign ads pointing to his support of McCain as evidence of his bipartisanship. However, Palazzo attacked Taylor for supporting Pelosi as Speaker and claimed Taylor voted with his party's leadership 82 percent of the time. In the following lame duck session of Congress, Taylor dropped his opposition to the Navy's plan to buy both classes of Littoral combat ship, even though this greatly reduced the chances that a shipyard in his former district would then be able to bid for follow on contracts. Proving just how Republican this district had become, no Democrat running in the district has cleared the 40 percent mark since Taylor left office, and only one has even cleared 30 percent.

Taylor opposed Palazzo in the Republican primary in the June 2014 election. Taylor was seeking to become the first Mississippi U. S. Representative since 1884 to return to the House of Representatives after losing reelection. In an op ed that ran in The Sun Herald, the largest newspaper in the district, Taylor said that when he began seriously considering a bid for his own seat, he never even considered running as a Democrat because he had always considered himself a conservative, and the Democrats' turn to the left made him realize that "my views and vision naturally fit in the Republican Party. Taylor, who was out raised by Palazzo by almost 6 to 1 and out spent by over 10 to 1, ran a grassroots campaign, emphasizing his work to secure funding for the district in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and his efforts to support veterans and funding for military bases in the district. He contrasted this with Palazzo's vote against funding for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts and supporting sequestration which cut the defense budget. Taylor narrowly lost the primary, securing 43 percent of the vote to Palazzo's 50.5 percent.

Taylor was appointed to the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission by District 3 Supervisor Lisa Cowand in March 2012 and served on the commission until 2014; he provided oversight for Stennis International Airport and Port Bienville Industrial Park. From September 2011 to December 2013, Taylor was a consultant at Navistar Defense, a defense firm.