The Mississippi Supreme Court runoff election between incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens and Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning remained too close to call Tuesday night, with political prognosticators signaling a careful counting of ballots that could take days.

With 91% of the total votes reported, the Associated Press reported that Branning received 50.2% of the vote, while Kitchens had 49.8%. The reported margin of votes at 10:45 p.m. was about 500 in favor of Branning.

The tightly contested race could come down to absentee and affidavit ballots, which are not counted in AP’s election night tabulation. State law currently allows for election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after Election Day, as long as the ballot was postmarked by the date of the election.

The Mississippi Republican Party worked hard for months to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high court, consolidating its infrastructure behind Branning. Conservative leaders are keenly aware that Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice, a job with administrative powers, should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Though candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made them effectively as partisan as traditional campaigns. 

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Mississippi Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. The GOP has directly endorsed Branning. 

Kitchens, a resident of Crystal Springs, was first elected to the court in 2008. He is a former district attorney and private practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases.

Branning, also private practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and equal pay for women, and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she stopped short of endorsing policy positions, which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing.

The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,000 and spent $182,000 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

Counties must certify the election results and send them to the Secretary of State’s office by Dec. 6, meaning a counting effort could continue through the Thanksgiving holiday and into the first part of December.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Amy St. Pé , an attorney from Jackson County, defeated Jennifer Schloegel, a chancery judge, on Tuesday night for an open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. 

With 94% of the vote reported, the Associated Press projected that St. Pé, who led with 61.5% of the vote, would defeat Schloegel, who trailed at 38.5%. The runoff election pitted two prominent Gulf Coast names against one another and saw hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars spent in the race. 

St. Pé is a municipal judge in Gautier. Schloegel is a chancery court judge in Hancock, Harrison and Stone counties.

Whenever St. Pé is installed as the judge replacing outgoing Judge Joel Smith, she will be one of five women serving on the 10-member Court of Appeals, the highest number of women who have ever served on the court at one time.

Election results: Mississippi Court of Appeals runoff

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

It’s Egg Bowl Week in the Magnolia State, as integral a part of Thanksgiving weekend in Mississippi as turkey, oyster dressing and casseroles.

So, without further adieu, and in no particular order, my five most memorable Egg Bowls of the nearly 50 I have witnessed:

1) The Immaculate Deflection: Ole Miss led 24-23 at Mississippi Memorial Stadium in 1983 when Artie Cosby, one of the best place-kickers in Mississippi history, lined up for a 27-yard, chip shot field goal. I was standing under the goal posts at the south end of the stadium amid gusting winds that threatened my balance. Cosby’s kick appeared perfect and then one of those 60 mph gusts blew the ball straight up into the air and then backward. Today, you would swear the scene was created by artificial intelligence. So it was that Billy Brewer’s first Ole Miss team went to a bowl game. So it was that State coach Emory Bellard told me postgame, “God just decided that Mississippi State wasn’t going to win that game.”

2) Back to Veterans Memorial Stadium and back to 1981. Ole Miss trailed State 17-14 with just 13 seconds to play. John Fourcade aimed a pass toward his crackerjack receiver Michael Harmon in the end zone. What happened next is Egg Bowl lore. State fans will tell you Harmon pushed off. The back judge, Dick Pace, instead ruled that State defensive back Kenneth Johnson, who intercepted the pass, was guilty of pass interference. With first down from the one, Fourcade faked a handoff and circled right end for the game-winning touchdown and then proceeded to wave the ball at State fans on his way back to the sidelines. For years, I had a running joke with Harmon. “You know you pushed off, Michael,” I’d tell him, to which he’d reply with a smile, “That’s not what the official said…”

3) Back to Scott Field for the 1997 Egg Bowl and another thrilling finish. Stewart Patridge, a clutch quarterback if there ever was one, drove Ole Miss on a last-minute drive for a touchdown and winning two-point conversion in a 15-14 Rebel victory. As exciting as the finish was, the pregame fireworks were just as memorable. A pregame brawl broke out, which, of course, State blamed on Ole Miss and Ole Miss blamed on State. I remember this: Mississippi Highway Patrolmen watched, seemingly amused, until it became apparent that somebody was going to get maimed, if not killed. It took officers a while, but they stopped it.

4) This happened in 2007 at Starkville, two days after I had written a column saying it was time for Ole Miss to find a new football coach, that the Ed Orgeron experiment has failed. Ole Miss, winless in the SEC and last in the league in every major statistical category, led 14-0 in the fourth quarter and faced fourth and one at midfield. State had gained only four first downs the entire game. Nevertheless, Orgeron decided to go for a first down instead of punting. State stuffed BenJarvus Green-Ellis for a two-yard loss. Suddenly, the Scott Field crowd was back in the game and so was State. To make a long story short, the final score: State 17, Ole Miss 14. Orgeron was fired the next day.

5) The Piss and Miss: Nobody who saw it will forget what happened at Scott Field in 2019. Ole Miss wide receiver Elijah Moore, who has become a terrific pro, snagged a short touchdown pass with four seconds remaining to cut State’s lead to 21-20. Moore celebrated on his hands and knees, hiking a leg as if he were a dog peeing in the State end zone. Officials did not appreciate Moore’s taste in humor and flagged him 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. Ole Miss missed the ensuing PAT and State won 21-20, costing Ole Miss coach Matt Luke his job and earning a $75,000 bonus for State coach Joe Moorhead, who was subsequently fired. Interestingly, State received a Music City Bowl bid as a result of the victory, which added $2.75 million to the SEC’s bowl pool. So Ole Miss received an extra $100,000 or so in its SEC bowl share because of Moore’s antics. What’s more, Ole Miss hired Lane Kiffin to replace Luke and State hired Mike Leach to replace Moorhead. You could not make all this up if you tried.

Here are five Egg Bowls I wish I had seen:

1) The first one ever in 1901: The opening kickoff was delayed 45 minutes because — believe it or not — there was a heated dispute. Ole Miss accused State of playing non-students, including one who had played for Ole Miss the year before. Finally, the game began and State won 17-0 in a game called for darkness in the third quarter.

2) In 1907, the Rebels and the Bulldogs sloshed onto the field on a cold, gray day at the State Fairgrounds in Jackson after several days of relentless rain. Much of the field was underwater, some of it knee-deep according to newspaper reports. The State men proved better mudders, winning 15-0, in part because Ole Miss coach Frank Mason provided an urn of coffee spiked with whiskey to warm his players. When asked about his team’s travel plans afterward, Mason said the team would leave for Oxford that night, but that he would not. And, he added, “I hope I never see them again.” He likely never did. He was fired shortly thereafter.

3) In 1918, the teams played not once but twice. State won 34-0 at Starkville and then two weeks later 13-0 at Oxford. The Rebels were coached by none other than Dudy R. Noble, a State graduate who later would become State’s beloved athletic director. “I know what hell is like,” Noble would tell folks. “I once coached at Ole Miss.”

4) In 1926 at Starkville, Ole Miss won 7-6 ending a 13-game losing streak to its bitter rival. Rebels fans and players celebrated, intending to tear down the goal posts. A melee ensured during which State fans reportedly attacked the Ole Miss celebrants with wooden chairs. As a result, a football-shaped trophy — the Golden Egg — was created to be awarded each year to the winning team (in lieu of goal posts). Thus, the Battle for the Golden Egg, later shortened to Egg Bowl. As noted, the trophy has done little to curb fighting, before games or after.

5) In 1941 at Oxford, State and Ole Miss played for the SEC championship for the only time in history. State won 6-0 to claim the only outright SEC title in Bulldog history. The late, great William Winter, a future governor, covered that game as an Ole Miss student reporter. More than seven decades later, he recounted the game, remembering even the most minute details. When an interviewer, this one, expressed amazement at Winter’s keen memory for something that happened 73 years before, he replied, “Well, you have to understand it was the most important thing in my life at the time.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.