AP news guide: Palazzo reelected in 4th district
Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 10 months AGO
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi was holding party primaries Tuesday to choose nominees for a U.S. Senate seat and four congressional seats:
U.S. SENATE
Mike Espy won the Democratic nomination Tuesday, easily defeating two challengers to face Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Libertarian candidate Jimmy Edwards in November.
Hyde-Smith is an ally of President Donald Trump. She was appointed to serve temporarily when Republican Thad Cochran retired in early 2018. In November 2018, Hyde-Smith defeated Espy in a hard-fought special election to occupy Cochran's seat for the remaining two years of the six-year term. Espy is a former congressman who served as U.S. agriculture secretary in the 1990s. Espy defeated two candidates in the Democratic primary: Tobey Bernard Bartee and Jensen Bohren.
Bartee is a former military intelligence officer who was eliminated in the first round of voting in the 2018 special election for Senate.
Bohren is a former teacher who unsuccessfully challenged Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker in 2018.
U.S. HOUSE — 1ST DISTRICT
Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly will face Democratic challenger Antonia Eliason in November in north Mississippi's 1st Congressional District. Neither had opposition in the primary on Tuesday. Kelly is a former district attorney and has been in the House since he won a 2015 special election. Eliason is a law professor at the University of Mississippi.
U.S. HOUSE — 2ND DISTRICT
The chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee easily won the Democratic primary.
Rep. Bennie Thompson defeated Sonia Rathburn, who owns a chiropractic business.
The two competed in the state's 2nd Congressional District, which stretches along the Mississippi River, through the Delta and into Jackson.
Thompson has been in Washington since winning a special election in 1993. He is the longest-serving member of Mississippi's current congressional delegation. He is also the only Democrat and the only African American representing the state on Capitol Hill. Thompson will face a Republican in November.
Three candidates are running in the Republican primary. Thomas L. Carey is a retired real estate agent who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2014. Brian Flowers is a military veteran who works at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station. B.C. Hammond is a volunteer firefighter and has run unsuccessfully for state legislative seats.
U.S. HOUSE — 3RD DISTRICT
Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Guest won his party primary in central Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District.
He defeated radio talk show host James Tulp. Guest is a former district attorney who was first elected to the House in 2018.
He will face Dorothy “Dot” Benford, who won the Democratic primary after defeating first-time candidate Katelyn Lee. Benford has run unsuccessfully for several offices.
U.S. HOUSE — 4TH DISTRICT
A Republican congressman has defeated three party primary challengers in south Mississippi's 4th Congressional District.
U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo is reelected because he faces no opponent in the November general election. Palazzo was first elected to the House in 2010.
On Tuesday, he defeated Carl Boyanton, Robert L. Deming III and Samuel Hickman. Boyanton is the former owner of a produce business. Deming is a Biloxi City Council member. Hickman worked for U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly in north Mississippi's 1st District.
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JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.