It’s primary day across Mississippi. Here are the candidates and what to expect

Former President Donald Trump has his hopes set that Republican voters in Mississippi and three other states will push him over the top Tuesday night in his quest to clinch his party’s presidential nomination for the third election in a row.

Further down the ballot are a handful of primaries for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. Republican incumbent Roger Wicker is seeking a fourth full term in the Senate and is the favorite to win his primary against two opponents. Republican primaries are also on the ballot in the 2nd and 4th Congressional Districts, while a Democratic primary is on the ballot in the 1st Congressional District.

Trump won hundreds of delegates on Super Tuesday, pushing him within reach of becoming the presumptive nominee, but he’ll need the bulk of the 161 delegates at stake in Mississippi, Georgia, Hawaii and Washington to close the deal. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the race this week and is no longer competing for Mississippi’s 40 delegates, but her name will still appear on the ballot.

There’s much less drama in the Democratic presidential primary. For starters, President Joe Biden is the only option on the ballot in Mississippi. And while Biden also won big on Super Tuesday, because of how the party’s nomination process and primary calendar are structured, the earliest he can clinch the nomination is March 19.

Here’s a look at what to expect:

What’s on the ballot?

HOUSE DISTRICT 1: Rep. Trent Kelly is unopposed for the Republican nomination in north Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District. He is a former district attorney and has been in the House since winning a 2015 special election. Kelly is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Dianne Dodson Black and Bronco Williams are competing in the Democratic primary.

Black is a business owner and was the Democratic nominee in the 1st District in 2022. She says she wants to support President Joe Biden’s economic policies, restore abortion rights and limit access to semi-automatic rifles.

Williams, a theater and Spanish teacher, says he wants the U.S. to invest in alternative energy sources, improve transportation and increase access to health care.

HOUSE DISTRICT 2: Rep. Bennie Thompson is unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses most of the city of Jackson and rural areas in the Delta and along the Mississippi River. Thompson has been in the House since he won a 1993 special election. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.

The three candidates in the Republican primary are Ron Eller, Andrew Scott Smith and Taylor Turcotte.

Eller is a military veteran and physician assistant who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in the 2nd District in 2022. He says he supports construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall and expansion of domestic energy production.

Smith has worked in farming and commercial real estate. He says he wants to rejuvenate agriculture, rebuild infrastructure, reinforce the southern U.S. border and require more transparency in government.

Turcotte has worked in advertising and as a regional sales manager for a vacuum cleaner company. She says she is running because she wants to secure the U.S. borders.

HOUSE DISTRICT 3: Republican Rep. Michael Guest is unopposed in the primary and the general election in central Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District. Guest is a former district attorney who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2018. He is chairman of the House Ethics Committee and vice chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

HOUSE DISTRICT 4: Rep. Mike Ezell faces two challengers in the Republican primary in south Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District.

Ezell is a former sheriff and was first elected to the House in 2022. He has voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and to end U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Former President Donald Trump endorsed him this year.

Carl Boyanton and Michael McGill are challenging Ezell in the Republican primary.

Boyanton has owned a produce distribution company. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the 4th District U.S. House seat in 2020 and 2022. He says he wants to enact term limits, eliminate some federal agencies and limit government spending.

McGill is a military veteran. He says he wants to improve power grids, highways and other infrastructure, increase funding for mental health services and eliminate pay disparities between women and men.

Craig Elliot Raybon is unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the 4th District.

SENATE: Sen. Roger Wicker faces two challengers in the Republican primary — Ghannon Burton and Dan Eubanks.

Wicker was appointed to the Senate in 2007 by then-Gov. Haley Barbour after fellow Republican Trent Lott stepped down. Wicker is an attorney and served in the Mississippi state Senate before winning a U.S. House seat in north Mississippi in 1994. He is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and has pushed to expand shipbuilding for the U.S. military. He has been endorsed by Trump.

Burton is a military veteran. He says he believes the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and he criticizes Wicker for voting to certify the results. Burton says he wants to close the U.S. border but he believes “globalists want it open.” Burton says he believes COVID-19 vaccines are poison.

Eubanks is a state representative and a Presbyterian pastor. He says he believes “J-6ers” — people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — have been denied due process and are “rotting away in jail.” Eubanks says he wants to reduce federal spending and he believes Wicker’s record is “anything but conservative.”

Ty Pinkins is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He is an attorney and ran unsuccessfully for Mississippi secretary of state in 2023. He says he wants to fight poverty and improve access to health care.

Primary day

The Mississippi presidential and state primaries will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 7 p.m.

Who can vote

Any registered voter may participate in either primary. Voters in Mississippi do not register by party. In the event of a runoff, eligible voters are those who voted in the same party’s primary or those who didn’t cast a ballot in any party’s primary. A voter may not participate in one party’s runoff if they cast a vote in a different party’s primary.

Delegate allocation

There are 35 pledged Democratic delegates at stake in Mississippi, and they’re awarded according to the national party’s standard rules, which allocate them proportionally based on statewide and congressional district votes. But with Biden standing alone on the ballot, no other candidate is eligible to receive delegates in Mississippi.

Mississippi has 40 Republican delegates at stake in the primary. All 40 delegates are awarded to the candidate who wins a majority of the statewide vote. If no candidate gets a statewide vote majority, the 28 statewide delegates are allocated proportionally to candidates who receive at least 20% of the statewide vote. For the 12 district-level delegates, if no candidate receives a statewide vote majority, the top statewide vote-getter receives two delegates in each of the four congressional districts, while the second-place statewide finisher gets one delegate per district.

Turnout

Turnout in 2023 was about 9% of registered voters in the Democratic primary for governor and about 18% in the Republican primary. There were just shy of 2,067,000 total registered voters for those primaries.

As of Feb. 26, the number of ballots already cast in the presidential primaries was 3,377. A breakdown by party is not available. In 2023, pre-Election Day voting made up about 8% of the total vote in the gubernatorial primaries.

When will we know?

In the 2023 primaries for gov2ernor, the AP first reported results at 7:21 p.m., or 21 minutes after polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 1:30 a.m. with about 96% of total votes counted.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 125 days until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, 160 days until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and 238 until the November general election.