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Mississippi’s four U.S. House incumbents easily won new two-year terms Tuesday.
Democrats reclaimed majorities in both the House and the Senate in an election that saw seismic change in many states as voters expressed frustration with high prices and American involvement in the war with Iran. Mississippi is sending three Republicans and one Democrat back to the House.
1st Congressional District
In the 1st District in northern Mississippi, Republican Rep. Trent Kelly won a seventh term.
He defeated Democrat Cliff Johnson, an attorney who is director of the MacArthur Justice Center and a professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and Johnny Baucom, a Libertarian candidate from Columbus.
The historically conservative district stretches from northeast Mississippi to the populous DeSoto County on the northwestern side of the state.
Kelly serves on the House Armed Services Committee and chairs the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. He is the vice chair of Intelligence and a member of the Agriculture Committee. He has been a staunch defender of President Donald Trump, particularly the president’s defense and national security decisions.
Before becoming a law school professor, Johnson worked for five years as an assistant U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration. He had been hoping to become the first Democrat to represent Mississippi’s 1st District in Congress since Travis Childers won in 2008.
Kelly first won a special election in 2015 to fill the seat after the death of former Rep. Alan Nunnelee.
2nd Congressional District
In the 2nd District in central and western Mississippi, longtime Rep. Democrat Bennie Thompson defeated Republican challenger Ron Eller, a cardiac physician’s assistant from Jackson, and Bennie Foster, an independent candidate from Jackson.
A native of Bolton, Thompson has represented the 2nd District covering Jackson and the Delta since 1993. He is the current ranking member and former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
A civil rights leader and former chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Thompson is a towering figure in state and national politics. That status has made him the prime target of Republican state leaders, who are poised to redraw his seat through redistricting after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.
Thompson, the lone Democrat and lone Black member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation, has dominated his reelection contests ever since first entering Congress.
3rd Congressional District
In the 3rd District in central Mississippi, four-term Rep. Republican Michael Guest of Brandon easily defeated Democratic challenger Michael Chiaradio, a farmer and entrepreneur from Shubuta.
The district covers central portions of the state, such as the GOP stronghold of Rankin County, and stretches from the Louisiana border in the west to rural Alabama border towns in the east.
Guest serves as chair of the House Ethics Committee, and also serves on the Homeland Security and Appropriations committees. He ran a steady, low-profile campaign, appearing at local events hosted by the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women and with U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Chiaradio, a first-time candidate for Congress originally from New Jersey, is a former baseball player turned farmer living in rural Mississippi. He told Mississippi Today that he believed a localized message built around economic frustration could unite both disaffected conservatives and a fractured Democratic Party.
4th Congressional District
In the 4th District in southern Mississippi, Republican Rep. Mike Ezell won a third term, defeating Democratic state lawmaker Jeffrey Hulum and Carl Boyanton, an independent candidate from Diamondhead.
A native of Pascagoula, Ezell was formerly sheriff of Jackson County. He entered Congress after defeating former Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo in 2022. Before that, Ezell was the Jackson County sheriff. He serves on the Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Ezell has said he wants to introduce legislation that rolls back unnecessary regulations at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make it easier for state and local governments to receive relief after natural disasters.
Hulum attempted to become the first Democrat to win the southern district since 2008. He currently represents Gulfport in the Mississippi House of Representatives, and he served in the U.S. Army for 22 years, retiring as a sergeant major. If elected, Hulum would have been be the first Black person to represent the 4th Congressional District.
