AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Mississippi’s state primaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi voters will choose nominees for Congress in a state primary Tuesday. The state’s junior Republican U.S. senator and the entire U.S. House delegation are up for reelection, and all but one have drawn multiple challengers from one or both major political parties hoping to replace them.

Republicans hold slim majorities on Capitol Hill, but control of either chamber in November likely won’t come down to Mississippi, where no federal office has changed party hands since 2010.

At the top of the ballot, Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith faces a primary challenge in her bid for a second full term from physician and novelist Sarah Adlakha. The Democratic primary field includes Scott Colom, a state district attorney covering Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee and Oktibbeha counties. President Joe Biden nominated Colom to the federal bench in 2023, but Hyde-Smith blocked his confirmation.

Hyde-Smith received about 54% of the vote in her two previous Senate general elections, both against former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. She did not face a primary challenge in 2020. Mississippi has had relatively little turnover in its two U.S. Senate seats. Since 1989, the state has had only four U.S. senators, all of them Republicans.

In the 2nd Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s longest-serving current member of Congress and the delegation’s lone Democrat, faces two primary challengers in his bid for an 18th term. Among them is attorney Evan Turnage, one of the latest young Democratic hopefuls looking to unseat a longtime incumbent from their own party. Turnage is a former adviser to Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Thompson’s most competitive primary as an incumbent was in 2006, when he received about 64% of the vote against then-state Rep. Chuck Espy, nephew of Mike Espy, whom Thompson succeeded in Congress in 1993.

Republicans Ron Eller and Kevin Wilson compete for the GOP nomination. Eller is a physician assistant who lost the 2024 general election to Thompson. Wilson is an Adams County supervisor.

The massive district stretches along the Mississippi River, bordering Arkansas and Louisiana, and comprises about 40% of the state’s geography. It includes most of the state capital of Jackson. About 64% of the district population is Black, the highest in the state. The current boundaries were adopted in 2022. Voters in the district supported Democrat Kamala Harris over Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, 60% to 39%.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Mississippi does not have automatic recounts or permit candidates to request a recount. Recounts in the state are held only in the event of a court order. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Desk will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. local time, which is 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the Democratic and Republican primaries for U.S. Senate and contested U.S. House primaries in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Congressional Districts.

Who gets to vote?

Mississippi does not register voters by party, so any eligible voter may participate in any party’s primary. Voters may not participate in more than one party’s primary. Voters who participated in one party’s primary may not vote in the April 7 runoff of a different party.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of Feb. 2, there were nearly 1.9 million active registered voters in Mississippi.

The 2024 Republican presidential and U.S. Senate primaries each had about 248,000 votes cast, about 13% of registered voters. There were about 91,000 votes cast in the Democratic presidential primary and about 82,000 in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, which was about 5% and 4% of registered voters, respectively. About 6% of the total votes cast in both the Republican and Democratic primaries that year were cast by absentee ballot.

As of Friday, a total of 13,473 ballots had already been cast in the 2026 primaries

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2024 primaries, the AP first reported results at 8:07 p.m. ET, or seven minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 12:35 a.m. ET, with about 95% of total votes counted.

When are early and absentee votes released?

There is not a standard, uniform practice across counties when it comes to releasing results of absentee voting. Some counties may provide a subtotal of absentee voting at the end of the tabulation process, while others might merge them with other results in their respective precincts and release them throughout the night.

Mississippi does not have in-person early voting.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 238 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.