Mississippi Today
It’s Election Day in Mississippi. Here’s what’s on the ballot.

State and local offices will be on the ballot across the state on Tuesday, headlined by the governor’s race between incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.
But across the state, much more will be on the ballot. Voters will see elections for all eight statewide offices, all 174 legislative seats, 22 district attorney seats, and various county offices such as for sheriff and supervisor.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. To locate your voting precinct and view sample ballots, click here.
Absentee voting numbers are higher this year than four years ago — a signal that can portend a high in-person turnout for a statewide election. As of Monday, there had been 56,403 absentee ballots completed and returned to local circuit clerks’ offices, compared to a little over 48,000 absentee votes counted in the 2019 statewide election. More than 62,000 absentee ballots have been requested for this election. Mailed absentee ballots will be counted as long as they are postmarked by election day and are returned through the mail to the local circuit clerk’s office by Nov. 15.
People who have recently moved and now live in a new precinct but did not have time to change their residency with their local circuit clerk’s office should vote at their new precinct. According to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, the person living in the new location should vote by affidavit and place their new address on their affidavit envelope. Listing the new address on the envelope will change their voting location for future elections and the affidavit ballot should count for Tuesday’s election.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s complete voter guide for the Nov. 7 general election
Below are previews of the key elections on Nov. 7.
Governor
Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves faces Democratic challenger Brandon Presley on Nov. 7. A third candidate, independent Gwendolyn Gray, dropped out of the race in October but will will be on the ballot. Gray’s candidacy could throw the race into chaos, potentially forcing the first gubernatorial runoff in state history.
Election preview: Could the 2023 governor’s race be decided by a runoff? For the first time in state history, it’s possible.
Lieutenant Governor
Incumbent Republican Delbert Hosemann, seeking a second and final term as lieutenant governor, faces Democratic challenger D. Ryan Grover.
Election preview: Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann faces challenge from Ryan Grover
Attorney General
Incumbent Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch faces Democratic challenger Greta Kemp Martin.
Election preview: Greta Kemp Martin makes reproductive health a focus against Attorney General Lynn Fitch
Secretary of State
Incumbent Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson, seeking a second term, faces Democratic challenger Ty Pinkins.
Election preview: Secretary of State Michael Watson faces challenger Ty Pinkins
State Treasurer
Democrat Addie Lee Green is challenging Republican incumbent Treasurer David McRae.
Election preview: Treasurer David McRae faces challenge from Addie Lee Green
State Auditor
Republican incumbent Auditor Shad White faces a challenge from Democrat Larry Bradford.
Election preview: Auditor Shad White faces challenge from Larry Bradford
Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce
Incumbent Republican Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson faces Democratic nominee Robert Bradford.
Election preview: Ag Commissioner Andy Gipson faces challenger Robert Bradford
Commissioner of Insurance
Republican Mike Chaney, seeking his fifth term as Mississippi insurance commissioner, is being challenged by Democrat Bruce Burton in Tuesday’s general election.
Election preview: Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney faces challenger Bruce Burton
Legislative races
Even though all 122 legislative districts will be on Tuesday, Democrats have no chance of wrestling control from the Republican majority later this fall.
Because Democrats are not challenging in enough legislative seats to gain control, the best they can hope for is ending supermajority Republican control of both the House and Senate.
Election preview: Only hope for legislative Democrats in November: ending Republican supermajorities
District attorney and sheriff races
At least 20 new sheriffs and three new district attorneys are expected to take office next year, and that number could grow after runoff elections later this month and the November general election.
Election Preview: New faces emerge as winners in sheriffs and DA races
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
House gives Senate 5 p.m. deadline to come to table, or legislative session ends with no state budget
The House on Wednesday attempted one final time to revive negotiations between it and the Senate over passing a state budget.
Otherwise, the two Republican-led chambers will likely end their session without funding government services for the next fiscal year and potentially jeopardize state agencies.
The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to extend the legislative session and revive budget bills that had died on legislative deadlines last weekend.
House Speaker Jason White said he did not have any prior commitment that the Senate would agree to the proposal, but he wanted to extend one last offer to pass the budget. White, a Republican from West, said if he did not hear from the Senate by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, his chamber would end its regular session.
“The ball is in their court,” White said of the Senate. “Every indication has been that they would not agree to extend the deadlines for purposes of doing the budget. I don’t know why that is. We did it last year, and we’ve done it most years.”
But it did not appear likely Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would comply.
The Mississippi Legislature has not left Jackson without setting at least most of the state budget since 2009, when then Gov. Haley Barbour had to force them back to set one to avoid a government shutdown.
The House measure to extend the session is now before the Senate for consideration. To pass, it would require a two-thirds majority vote of senators. But that might prove impossible. Numerous senators on both sides of the aisle vowed to vote against extending the current session, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the chamber said such an extension likely couldn’t pass.
Senate leadership seemed surprised at the news that the House passed the resolution to negotiate a budget, and several senators earlier on Wednesday made passing references to ending the session without passing a budget.
“We’ll look at it after it passes the full House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby said.
The House and Senate, each having a Republican supermajority, have fought over many issues since the legislative session began early January.
But the battle over a tax overhaul plan, including elimination of the state individual income tax, appeared to cause a major rift. Lawmakers did pass a tax overhaul, which the governor has signed into law, but Senate leaders cried foul over how it passed, with the House seizing on typos in the Senate’s proposal that accidentally resembled the House’s more aggressive elimination plan.
The Senate had urged caution in eliminating the income tax, and had economic growth triggers that would have likely phased in the elimination over many years. But the typos essentially negated the triggers, and the House and governor ran with it.
The two chambers have also recently fought over the budget. White said he communicated directly with Senate leaders that the House would stand firm on not passing a budget late in the session.
But Senate leaders said they had trouble getting the House to meet with them to haggle out the final budget.
On the normally scheduled “conference weekend” with a deadline to agree to a budget last Saturday, the House did not show, taking the weekend off. This angered Hosemann and the Senate. All the budget bills died, requiring a vote to extend the session, or the governor forcing them into a special session.
If the Legislature ends its regular session without adopting a budget, the only option to fund state agencies before their budgets expire on June 30 is for Gov. Tate Reeves to call lawmakers back into a special session later.
“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said.
If Reeves calls a special session, he gets to set the Legislature’s agenda. A special session call gives an otherwise constitutionally weak Mississippi governor more power over the Legislature.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Candice Wilder joins Mississippi Today as new higher education reporter
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Candice Wilder has joined the newsroom as our newest higher education reporter.
Wilder takes over higher ed coverage from Mississippi Today reporter Molly Minta, who built the beat starting in early 2021 but has since moved to the newsroom’s team covering the city of Jackson.
“I’m thrilled to join a talented and ambitious team of journalists who provide critical news and information to Mississippians,” Wilder said. “Reporting on the state’s colleges and universities at this moment is more important now than ever. My goal is to develop thoughtful coverage and tell crucial stories that will continue to serve and reflect these communities.
Wilder, an Ohio native, was one of 19 founding staff members of Signal Cleveland, an inaugural nonprofit newsroom part of Signal Ohio. There, she developed a beat that provided accessible health news and information to residents of Cleveland. Her work has led to recognitions from the Cleveland Press Club and the Association of Healthcare Journalists.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Candice to our newsroom,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “So many aspects of the higher education system are under intense scrutiny and attack across the country — from free speech to funding to accountability — and Mississippi is certainly no exception. Our colleges and universities are at the heart of critical conversations about equity, access, and the future of our state as a whole. Candice brings a sharp eye, strong reporting skills, and genuine curiosity to our team, and I’m confident that her work will help Mississippians navigate the often complicated and evolving nature of higher ed here.”
“We’re so happy to have someone with Candice Wilder’s passion and experience to pick up the mantle of higher education reporting at Mississippi Today,” said Debbie Skipper, who will serve as her editor. “Molly Minta set a high standard in our reporting in this area, and I know Candice will maintain that while offering her own professional perspective.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
PSC revives solar programs a year after suspending them
The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to lift a stay on programs offering incentives for solar power. The same commission voted to suspend the programs last April.
The PSC initially voted in 2024 to suspend three programs: “Solar for Schools,” which allows school districts to essentially build solar panels for free in exchange for tax credits, as well as incentives for battery storage and low-income participants in the state’s “distributed generation” rule. Mississippi’s “distributed generation” rule is similar to net metering in other places, but reimburses customers for less than what most states offer.
Net metering is a program where power companies — in this case Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power — reimburse customers who generate their own solar power, often with rooftop panels, and sell any extra power back to the grid.
The PSC suspended the programs in 2024 because, at the time, the federal government was also offering funds through its “Solar for All” initiative. The commission reasoned that the state didn’t need to add incentives, which the previous commission approved in 2022 on top of the new funding. After learning that the state government didn’t receive any “Solar for All” funding, the PSC decided on Tuesday to reverse course.
While the State of Mississippi didn’t receive any of the funding, Hope Enterprise Corp. did get $94 million last year through the program to bring solar power to low-income and disadvantaged homes in the state.
The previous PSC created the “Solar for Schools” program as a way to save school districts money on their power bills to help with other expenses. While no districts were able to make use of the program before the PSC suspended it last year, other districts have seen savings after installing solar panels. Any of the 95 school districts within the Entergy and Mississippi Power grids are eligible for the PSC incentives.
Solar advocates disagreed with the PSC’s assertion that federal “Solar for All” funding would have replaced the PSC programs, which went into effect in January 2023, arguing that the commission’s ruling would scare off potential new business. Those advocates applauded Tuesday’s reversal, saying the incentives will support professions within the solar supply chain such as electricians, roofers, manufacturers and installers.
“Yesterday’s actions by the MPSC sends a strong signal that Mississippi is open for business,” Monika Gerhart, executive director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, said via email. “For schools and homeowners that want to save money on their light bill, yesterday’s vote creates additional savings to install solar.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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