Mississippi Senate Seat Heads to Runoff Election

Mississippi will find its next Senator during a runoff election later this month. Current Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, appointed to fill the seat when Thad Cochran retired, will face former Clinton-era Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy. Hyde-Smith is the first woman to hold a Senate seat from Mississippi and served as the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture. She also was a member of the Mississippi State Senate for 12 years and chaired the state Agriculture Committee for eight of those years. Hyde-Smith held a seat on the much-coveted Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee in D.C. Espy is a Democrat and the first African-American to ever hold the Secretary of Agriculture position at the USDA. Espy held the job from 1997-1998 when he resigned after being acquitted of charges for receiving improper benefits. He’s been working as a lawyer in Mississippi since then. Neither Hyde-Smith or Espy got 50 percent of the votes, the necessary threshold for an outright win. They’ll run against each other in a special election on November 27th.