Democratic forum with congressional candidates planned
There are seven Democrats running in the four Congressional district primaries in Mississippi and a political forum with the candidates has been planned for next month, a program that will include the two Democratic candidates in the First Congressional District.
The forum, hosted by the Mississippi Federation of Democratic Women, will be done live via Zoom on Monday, May 2, from 7-8:30 p.m. Registration is open until the event is full and participants must register through the www.MFDW.org website.
The seven candidates expected to take part include two challengers for the First Congressional District seat now held by Cong. Trent Kelly. They are Dianne Dodson Black and Hunter Avery.
Black is from Olive Branch and is a small business owner. She ran unsuccessfully against state Sen. Kevin Blackwell in the state Senate election of 2019, when she received 36.2 percent of the vote.
Avery is from Belmont and appears to be in his first run for public office.
Kelly is running for reelection on the Republican side, but he is being challenged by Mark Strauss of Olive Branch in the primary. Strauss is also a first-time candidate in Mississippi.
The forum will also include the congressional candidates from the other districts, including current Cong. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democratic member of the state’s delegation in Washington, D.C., and has been on Capitol Hill since 1993.
Thompson is facing a challenge in the Democratic primary from Gerald Kerner. Kerner was a former candidate for mayor in Clinton. He is a small business owner.
