Mississippi’s Fall Special Elections of 2025

Chris Kirkwood

Election watchers already know that Mississippi often has odd election timing. Their governorship, statewide offices, and legislature has always come up during the 3rd year of a Presidential cycle. These races have seen prominent candidates run for in recent years like former state SoS Jim Hood and Commissioner Brandon Pressley, and former US Ag. Secretary Mike Espy in a special election for the Senate. For a state that almost always delivers Republicans to virtually every office there have been some close calls recently.

Mississippi will be holding a set of legislative special elections this fall. Most states have regular State House and some or all of their State Senate seats up during even years, but Mississippi bucks the trend by holding all of their legislative elections on every 4th odd year. Two years too early, 15 seats across the state’s legislative chambers will go to the polls to choose new representatives. 

Why? The state lost a VRA-related lawsuit from the state’s chapter of the NAACP. The NAACP and other Black residents of the state argued that the proportion of Senate and House seats did not reflect the racial balance of the state, and sought judicial remedy. The court sided with the NAACP, and the state legislature enacted new maps to attempt to comply with the order. Of note, the maps did not entail a full redraw of the state, just specific regions where Black representation has been denied. For the Senate, this entailed 3 districts in the northwest of the state, and 7 in the south. For the House, 5 districts betweenTupelo and Columbus had to be redrawn. 

Here, we’ll break down what to expect with the semi-competitive districts that were enacted. Given the political polarization in a state like Mississippi, it’s exceptionally unlikely that most of the districts enacted will be competitive, but there are five districts (three in the Senate, and two in the House) across the two sets of maps that will likely see notable competition.

We’ll also assess how these new districts fall short of expectations. Given that some of them lean Republican, the odds that the will of their African American communities being represented is fairly low. On paper, White, Republican representatives should be responsive to their constituents when facing a more diverse, liberal electorate, but this is far from a guarantee. 

The New State Senate Districts

Courtesy of Wikipedia, we have a district map of where the Senate’s fall special elections will be held, denoted by which parties have filed to run. The blue districts only have Democrats, the red districts only have Republicans, and the dark gray districts have no candidate filings. Purple means that both parties have had candidates file, and pink means two Republicans have filed. Of note, the districts that have had more than one candidate file so far are ones where incumbents have been double-bunked. Which happens when the new map puts two incumbents in the same district.

Redrawn State Senate districts where special elections will be held in 2025 (Wikipedia, 2025)

Going in numerical order, SD 1 is now a 52.5% Black district (referring to Black population by CVAP here and in future references) in northwest Mississippi. Interestingly, however, the district voted for Trump by about 9 points in 2024. The seat contains all of Quitman County, and parts of Coahoma, Tunica, Tate, and DeSoto counties. Trump was able to win this district because of the smattering of rural whites in the south, but most importantly, the city of Hernando in DeSoto County and its surrounding area. The red hue of the district isn’t just a function of Kamala Harris having underperformed expectations: Trump won the district in 2020 as well, albeit by a much narrower margin.

So, why is the district competitive in our eyes? For one, the backlash against the Trump administration is likely to hit hard across the country, but especially so in more suburban and exurban communities, like Hernando. Assuming that there are efforts to get out the vote by Democrats in the area (which is probable given 2 new competitive Senate seats at least partially within DeSoto County), this likely hit with white voters could flip the seat. Additionally, there is already a Democratic Senator for the area. Senator Reginald Jackson was redistricted from the 11th district, and will face current SD 1 Senator Michael McLendon. Jackson has represented the Blacker part of the district, and McLendon the whiter part, so the incumbency advantage for each is a mixed bag. Overall, we would expect that Republicans will win the district, albeit narrowly. We rate the race as Leans Republican

SD 11 is the other seat that splits DeSoto County, also including part of Tunica County. The bulk of this district, however, is the newly blue suburbs of Memphis, including portions of Southaven and Horn Lake. The district went for Harris by 10 points, with Trump doing best in the outskirts of DeSoto and rural Tunica. The iteration of the district is now 50.9% African American.

On paper, this would appear to be a Democratic lock. While we believe that Democrats will win this newly-open seat, we urge caution. Suburbs are still in the midst of their realignment, and could very well swing back to Republicans to an extent. We think this is unlikely (or at least, unlikely to be major), given the current drama with the Trump administration, but this could happen. We rate this seat as Leans Democratic, and may shift it to Likely Democratic in the event that polling or some out-of-pocket event depict a larger disadvantage for Republicans than foreseen.

This duo of seats would appear to not be respecting communities of interest in any sense. Furthermore, at best, this would appear to be a seat tradeoff, with SD 1 poised to flip Republican despite its majority Black CVAP, and SD 11 poised to flip Democratic. In our assessment, this will only appear to serve Black interests on paper, and not in function. 

However, a remedy is easily possible, while only modifying the five districts in the region that were altered in the remedial redistricting (districts 1, 2, 10, 11, and 19). Below is an example of how this could be achieved. District 11 would be able to remain Democratic-leaning, and sit at 58.5% Black. District 2 now would be a majority minority district. This would, however, come with the caveat that the seat is only 43.3% Black, and serve as a minority-opportunity district, as the white population is 47.2%, with Hispanics making up most of the difference. A plan of this style would be supported by the redistricting literature, and would serve to better keep COI’s together (ex. The Delta and Memphis suburbs).

Our northern cluster of State Senate District Edits

SD 34 is a seat that is much harder to pin a rating to with partisanship alone. The district contains Jasper County, and parts of Covington and Jones counties in the south of the state, sitting at 53.3% African American. Trump won this iteration of the district by a point and a half, mainly due to the scattered rural, white communities, whereas Harris got her margins primarily from rural Black precincts, and the cities of Laurel and Queensburg in Jones County.

The seat is currently represented by Senator Juan Barnett (D). The previous iteration of the district was a much safer seat for him, as it combined Jasper County with heavily-Democratic Hattiesburg. Now, Hattiesburg gets its own, compact, Democratic-leaning seat, and Barnett has a much more competitive district to defend. We believe that he is favored to do so, due to his incumbency advantage, and backlash against Trump and the Republican party. The path to victory is easy: hold Jones County, and flip Jasper back to the Democratic column. We, as such, rate the district as Leans Democratic.

Regarding possibly improving the district, doing so is difficult with the current parameters. What we were able to do while only editing boundaries of districts 34, 41, 42, 44, and 45 is make the 34th slightly Democratic leaning by under 300 votes. Attempting to split the very Democratic Hattiesburg seat would be a major disruption to COI, and just result in even uglier looking districts.

Our southern cluster of State Senate District Edits

The New State House Districts

Below, we can see the new State House districts, courtesy of the Magnolia Tribune. Again, the redistricting process only impacted five districts in the northeast of the state, putting only one Republican in a new majority-minority district. To our knowledge, all districts included in this map currently have incumbents who are seeking re-election.

Redrawn State House districts where special elections will be held in 2025 (Magnolia Tribune, 2025)

HD 16 is split between Lee, Pontotoc, Chickasaw, and Monroe counties in the northeast of the state. The district is 53.2% Black, and actually home to Brandon Pressley, who was mayor of Nettleton in the district’s southeast. Trump won the district by 2 points, relying on the red Tupelo suburbs and rural communities in Monroe and Pontotoc to put him over the line.

If we had to assign a rating to this seat other than tossup, we would say Leans Democratic. The district’s current incumbent is Democrat Rickey Thompson, who initially represented a much more Democratic seat. Still, the Tupelo-based core of his district remains, which serves as something of an advantage to him. The national environment will also of course be a factor, and likely gain Thompson more favor in the Tupelo area.

HD 22 is divided amongst Chickasaw, Clay, and Monroe counties, immediately to the south of HD 16. The district is 51.2% Black, and voted for Kamala Harris by less than a point (70 votes exactly). Trump’s strength is most concentrated in western Chickasaw County, and a pair of precincts in Monroe. Democrats have won Chickasaw County in the past Presidentially, but it’s swung to the right in recent years.

Currently, HD 22 is represented by Republican Jonathan Lancaster, who plans to run for re-election. Given the district’s exceptionally narrow margin, racial polarization, and Lancaster’s incumbency advantage, we find him narrowly favored to win re-election. It is possible that the national environment catches up with him, and any notable damage to the Republican brand pre-election might cause us to change this rating. But, currently, we rate the seat as Leans Republican.

This configuration of seats is more likely to elect a duo of Republicans that is wholly unresponsive to the interest of the Black community than it is to elect Black representatives. As such, we set about attempting to redraw the seats in the area. However, restricting our edits to the five seats in question resulted in repeated results of the same variety.

Our final map ended up editing the boundaries of 9 seats. In doing so, it created a majority Black seat wholly within Lee County, one to its South, and kept the 36th as a plurality (49.7%) Black seat. Both the 16th and 22nd also become double-digit Harris seats, and the 36th sits around Harris + 4.

Our State House District edits

Overall, there will certainly be some competitive seats to watch in Mississippi this fall, but enhancing Black representation in the state with redistricting along these lines is far from a certainty. Republicans at best rolled the dice on being able to hypothetically retain their current seats and at worst sought to take more Democratic seats off the board (or at least make them competitive). While there is a nonzero chance that one party sweeps all of the seats in question, the partisan balance of each chamber will in all likelihood remain the same, and Black representation will not improve.

Stay tuned for more on the subject of this fall’s elections from Pivot Point. And, if you’d like to be a contributor and write about elections and campaigns in some way, shoot us a message.