Calhoun Countians will go to the polls next Tuesday, Nov. 4 to cast votes in five contested races and a proposed constitutional amendment.
The races are highlighted by the U.S. Senate contest between incumbent Thad Cochran – R, Travis Childers – D, and Reform party candidate Shawn O’Hara.
Thad Cochran
Cochran, 76, served six years in the U.S. House before winning a Senate seat in 1978. This year, he faced his toughest re-election challenge yet, as a tea party-supported state senator, Chris McDaniel, tried to unseat him in the Republican primary.
McDaniel edged Cochran in a three-person primary June 3, but Cochran rebounded to defeat McDaniel by 7,667 votes in the runoff three weeks later. McDaniel filed a lawsuit in early August, claiming that voting irregularities should overturn the runoff results. A circuit judge dismissed the suit, saying it was filed too late. McDaniel appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which ruled last week that it would not revive his lawsuit.
Former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers acknowledges he faces a tough task running for senator in Mississippi, a conservative state that hasn’t chosen a Democrat for that job since Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
Childers has been critical of Mississippi’s Republican leadership’s refusal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare to cover about 300,000 uninsured Mississippians. He also supports an increase to the minimum wage, equal pay for women and better support for public schools.
Childers has also been critical of Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell as the Democratic leaders in the Senate, saying a change in leadership is needed.
“I’m certainly disenchanted with the leadership right now in the U.S. Senate. I’m disenchanted with both of them. I’m disenchanted with Harry Reid, and I’m disenchanted with Mitch McConnell,” Childers said, mentioning the Nevada Democrat and the Kentucky
Travis Childers
Republican. “These two men are not getting anything done and it’s to the detriment of the American people.”
Cochran, 76, who declined to debate Childers during the campaign, has been a critic of “Obamacare,” and has vowed to continue working to help the state’s military and agriculture industry.
Cochran said at the Neshoba County Fair that he shares people’s frustration with Washington and he also vowed to help cut federal spending. But he said that would be easier to do as a senior member of a Republican Senate majority — one set to again be chairman of Appropriations if the GOP regains a majority.
Hattiesburg resident and Reform Party candidate Shawn O’Hara has run more than a dozen low-budget campaigns for various offices the past two decades, never winning.
The only contested race on the ballot with a local candidate is for Chancery Court Judge in District 18, Place 1, where Tina Dugard Scott, of Vardaman is looking to win a three candidate race. Scott, who serves as County Attorney, is opposing incumbent Glenn Alderson and Carnelia Fondren, both of Oxford.
The only other local race on the ballot is for the District Five School Board seat where incumbent Whit Casey, of Vardaman, is unopposed.
Other contested races include:
U.S. House of Representatives
1st Congressional District
Ron E. Dickey – D
Alan Nunnelee – R
Danny Bedwell – Libertarian
Lajena Walley – Reform
Chancery Judge District 18, Place 2
Helen Kennedy Robinson
Robert Q. “Bob” Whitwell
Circuit Court Judge
District 3, Place 2
Shirley C. Byers
J. Kizer (Ki) Jones
Kelly Luther
The ballot also features a statewide resolution that proposes to establish hunting and fishing as a right in the state constitution. Voters will simply choose yes or no if they support such a change to the constitution.
The Circuit Clerk’s office in Pittsboro will be open Saturday, Nov. 1 from 8 a.m. until noon for absentee voting.
If you are uncertain where you go vote in the Nov. 4 general election, you may visit www.sos.ms.gov/pollingplace and enter your home physical address and it will tell you your polling place, provide you with driving directions and a sample ballot for your precinct. For more information contact the circuit clerk’s office at 412-3101.