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Whitney Lipscomb, the general counsel for the Republican Attorneys General Association, announced Thursday that she is running for Mississippi secretary of state next year in the Republican primary. 

“I am more convinced now more than ever that Mississippi needs leadership with unwavering conservative convictions, a deep desire to make a difference and the ability to get things done,” Lipscomb said at a press conference at the Mississippi Republican Party headquarters in Jackson. 

While this is her first time running for office, Lipscomb has spent much of her career in Republican politics and government. 

Lipscomb was deputy chief of staff and an attorney for then-Gov. Phil Bryant. She served as deputy attorney general for about five years under Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is running for governor next year.

“I have spent my career in the fights that matter to Mississippi because I love this state,” Lipscomb said, citing her work under Bryant and Fitch, both of whom were seated in the front row during her announcement.

The secretary of state’s responsibilities include overseeing state elections as well as managing business formations and managing state-owned land. Lipscomb said her top priorities are cutting red tape for business owners and protecting “every lawful vote” in elections. 

“We’re going to continue to protect the integrity of Mississippi’s elections. If people do not trust elections, they won’t trust their government,” Lipscomb said. “Process matters and the rules must be followed. We are seeing exactly how important that is right this very moment.”

Lipscomb’s campaign committee filed its initial paperwork in May.

Shuwaski Young, the Democratic nominee for secretary of state in 2023, has said that he is running again for the position next year as a Republican. No Democratic candidate has announced a run for the office. 

Current Secretary of State Michael Watson is running for lieutenant governor next year. Current Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is term-limited.

As Democrat Scott Colom narrowly leads incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a race for U.S. Senate, it appears Mississippi will see a partisan legal fight over thousands of affidavit ballots that will decide the outcome.

Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst vowed at a Thursday press conference to “fight like hell” to ensure that only “legally cast” ballots are counted and that the process to review and count the outstanding ballots is aboveboard. 

READ MORE: Thousands of affidavit ballots outstanding in Mississippi Senate election. Campaigns prepare for legal fight

“Let me be clear: This race is far from being over,” Hurst said. “Right now, we estimate that there could be approximately 20,000 outstanding ballots left to be counted.” 

Hurst said, without providing evidence, that the areas where a large number of affidavit ballots remain outstanding are traditional Republican-leaning areas of the state. When asked if he would name those specific counties, he declined. 

The razor-thin margin of votes between Hyde-Smith and Colom in a state considered a Republican stronghold has sent shockwaves across the nation, but it remained too close to call on Thursday. Only 1,764 votes separated the two candidates. The Associated Press reported that Colom led 466,226 to 464,502, with 96% of the vote counted.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the fundraising arm of the Senate GOP, sent letters to circuit county clerks and election commissioners asking them to preserve and set aside affidavit ballots. 

Kyle Kirkpatrick, former head of the elections division at the Mississippi secretary of state’s office, questioned on social media how productive that exercise would be because once affidavit ballots are scanned, it is “impossible to determine” what voter that ballot was associated with. 

Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney at Elias Law Group who is representing the Colom campaign, wrote its own letter to circuit clerks and election commissioners saying that the NRSC’s demands violate state law.

“There is no basis whatsoever in Mississippi law for creating or maintaining records that would allow any accepted ballot to be linked to any particular voter’s identity,” Lopez wrote.  “Doing so would violate voters’ constitutional rights.”

PODCAST: When will we know who won Mississippi’s Senate midterm election?

Election attorneys, voting rights advocates and reporters from around the globe have descended on Mississippi over the past 48 hours, scrambling to make sense of what remaining ballots were left, when they would be counted and how Colom found himself in striking distance of pulling off a victory in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in over four decades.  

Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy organization, said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic election attorneys from Elias Law Group have deployed hundreds of volunteers and local lawyers across all 82 counties to oversee the final rounds of counting. 

Mississippi has no automatic recount law. A recount would happen only if a court ordered it. For that to happen, a campaign or political party would have to file a lawsuit against a county or county election commission. 

A state judge would likely hear the case on an expedited basis, and the lower court’s decision would be appealable to the Mississippi Supreme Court. 

After the election results are certified, campaigns can conduct ballot box examinations, which can be used as evidence in a lawsuit. The dispute over which affidavit ballots are accepted and rejected would likely be the subject of litigation. 

If a court fight ensued, it could be a disjointed, chaotic process. Mississippi law does not establish a system for challenging ballots on a statewide scale, only on a county-by-county basis. 

The Republican Party chairman declined to say in which specific county he’s considering filing a lawsuit, but he referenced Hinds County, Mississippi’s largest county and a Democratic stronghold, as a likely option. 

“It’s no surprise that this is a traditionally Democratic county, and I don’t think it’s any surprise that this election commission, in particular, has had a number of issues in the past that frankly are not just Republican issues, but even Democratic election commissioners have complained about how the electoral system in Hinds County has operated,” Hurst said. 

The press conference displayed the awkward and surprising position the state GOP currently finds itself in, a Deep South state that has consistently sent Republicans to the U.S. Senate for the last four decades. 

For the first time in a generation, an incumbent Republican senator in Mississippi running for reelection has been caught flat-footed and put on the defensive after Black voters turned out in droves and many Republican voters crossed over to vote for Colom. 

Hurst, who also serves as general counsel for the Republican National Committee, acknowledged that Democratic candidates did “pretty well” around the country and this was the closest Senate race that reliably conservative Mississippi has had in a “very, very long time.” 

Though he claimed that Hyde-Smith would ultimately win the election, Hurst said he would accept the results of the election if the votes show Colom lawfully won.

Voters have until Nov. 10 to correct issues related to presenting a voter ID at their local circuit clerk’s office, which is also the same date election officials have to count late-arriving mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day.

WASHINGTON — There are just four races for U.S. Senate and governor that The Associated Press has not yet called as of Thursday.

Contests in Alaska, Kansas and Mississippi have narrow margins with votes still outstanding even as the scale of Democrats’ midterm victory across the country comes into focus, ensuring the party will control the House and the Senate next year.

LIVE: 2025 Mississippi election results

In the House, 35 races in which party control of the seat is at stake have yet to be called.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidate to close the gap.

In Mississippi’s Senate race, Democrat Scott Colom has seen his lead of a few dozen votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith grow to 1,145 votes with 96% of ballots counted.

Several thousand provisional ballots are expected to be counted in the race, and the state has until Nov. 10 to resolve those ballots. Those votes will be decisive. In 2022, the state counted about 5,700 provisional ballots. Mississippi does not have an automatic recount process, but a challenger can seek a court order for one.

The AP also has not called Alaska’s Senate contest between incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola, who had a 637-vote lead over Sullivan with an estimated 74% of votes counted. Peltola had 48.2% of the votes, to Sullivan’s 47.9%. Under Alaska law, if neither candidate gets more than 50% of the votes then it goes to ranked-choice tabulation.

Also in Alaska, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has a 20-percentage-point lead over Republican Bernadette Wilson in the governor’s race. Kreiss-Tomkins had 49.2% of the vote with an estimated 74% of the ballots counted.

Like the Senate contest, the governor’s election advances to another round if no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes.

In Kansas, Democrat Cindy Holscher has less than a 1-percentage-point lead over Republican Ty Masterson in the governor’s race. Holscher’s 7,045-vote lead with an estimated 99% of votes counted comes after Democrat Adam Hamilton became the first member of his party to win a Senate seat in the state in nearly a century.

Holscher and Masterson both serve in the state Senate, where the Republican serves as its president.

DeSoto County voters elected the county’s first Black circuit and chancery court judges to newly created positions from last year’s redistricting efforts. 

John Hughes, a Southaven attorney and Walls Municipal Court judge, received 61% of the vote to become a circuit court judge. Gwen Baptist, a Southaven attorney, received 51% of votes to become a chancery judge, according to unofficial results. 

On Wednesday, both recognized how their wins made history and thanked supporters. 

Hughes said it was humbling to be both the first Black municipal judge and circuit judge to be elected in DeSoto County. 

“All citizens deserve a court that balance(s) fairness with the temperance of justice and compassion, when within reason,” Hughes wrote on his campaign Facebook page. “I am proud to be your humble public servant and neighbor.”

The circuit court is responsible for felony criminal prosecutions, which includes trials and sentencing. It also handles civil claims over $200 and hears appeals from the county and justice courts. 

Throughout her campaign, Baptist shared her family’s generational roots in DeSoto County and her connection to land, including a few videos of her on family land. In a message to supporters after Election Day, she said her father and grandfather had to conduct legal business outside the courthouse during the state’s Jim Crow era, but the win gives her the privilege to walk through the doors and serve from the bench.

“This victory is both a profound professional honor and an opportunity to honor my father, recognize the sacrifice of those who came before me and carry forward their legacy through service,” she wrote on Facebook.

The chancery court is responsible for wills and estates, adoption, child custody, divorce, guardianships and conservatorships. The court can also approve final domestic abuse protection orders. 

The only countywide Black official in DeSoto is Sheriff Thomas E. Tuggle II, who was elected  in 2023. 

The milestone comes several months after a federal lawsuit challenged the creation of the majority-Black subdistricts that eventually elected Baptist and Hughes.  

Last year, lawmakers redrew state court districts using the most recent 2020 U.S. Census data. In DeSoto County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state, lawmakers created the two majority-Black subdistricts in parts of Horn Lake and Southaven. Black residents make up over a third of the county’s population. 

U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock on Aug. 13 denied efforts by four DeSoto County residents, including county Supervisor Robert Foster, to prevent subdistrict of voters from electing the two countywide judges.

Foster argued that a small section of voters discriminated against white residents and that voting should be opened across the entire county. In her ruling, Aycock said the evidence presented at trial did not clearly point to race as the justification for the drawing of the judicial maps.

In the DeSoto case, Aycock ruled that just because race was referenced when the Legislature created the subdistrict and statistics show that it created a majority-Black subdistrict, it didn’t necessarily mean it was an unconstitutional gerrymander. 

She also noted that Rep. Dan Eubanks, a Republican from Walls, had testified that the Legislature added one circuit court judge and one chancery judge because the county needed help with the case backlog that stemmed from its growing population. 

Foster filed the lawsuit after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that enabled the drawing of majority-minority districts. In Callais, the high court rejected Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district, finding it relied too heavily on race and calling it an “unconstitutional gerrymander.”

That ruling has led to worries that Republican-led states would try to eliminate majority-Black and Latino electoral districts. Some state lawmakers have called for the state’s only majority-Black congressional district to be eliminated.

Republican states including Mississippi began redistricting efforts after the Callais decision. The state Senate formed a redistricting study committee that traveled across the state to hear from residents. 

Redistricting is also expected to be taken up during the 2027 legislative session that starts in January. 

DeSoto County previously faced a lawsuit that alleged its 2022 electoral map diluted Black voting power in county office elections and called for creation of majority-Black districts. In June, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, finding the plaintiffs didn’t provide enough proof that maps were drawn to intentionally dilute Black voting power.   

Local election officials on Thursday continued processing thousands of outstanding absentee and affidavit ballots as the nation watched to see who will win Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race.  

The razor-thin margin between Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom has already shocked many across the nation, but it remained too close to call on Thursday. Colom led by 1,764 votes with nearly 1 million cast.

A likely legal fight over the count also continued brewing on Thursday.

Colom’s campaign said he is clearly on track to win, and the voting rights organization Fair Fight said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic election attorneys from Elias Law Group have deployed hundreds of volunteers and local lawyers across all 82 counties to oversee the final rounds of counting. 

LIVE: 2026 Mississippi election results

The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a letter on Thursday to county election commissioners and circuit clerks in Mississippi, demanding they separate and preserve all affidavit ballots cast. 

“As the democratic process continues to play out, we are committed to ensuring that every single lawful ballot is accurately counted and the voices of all Mississippians are heard,” said NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell. 

The letter demands that election officials preserve a wide range of records, pointing to future litigation.  

The state Republican Party was set to address reporters in a press conference in Jackson later on Thursday.

How many votes are left to count?

Secretary of State Michael Watson on Wednesday said that 3,600 outstanding mail-in absentee ballots could be processed, though realistically not all of these ballots will reach local election workers by the statutory Nov. 10 deadline. 

Between 14,000 and 18,000 affidavit ballots remain outstanding throughout the state, according to Lisa Ross, a local voting rights attorney who is leading the effort to monitor election officials processing the remaining ballots. 

Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst told reporters on Thursday afternoon that Republicans believe there could be as many 20,000 outstanding ballots, including mail-ins, absentees and affadavits. He said the election wasn’t over, and Republicans were deploying resources across the state.

Election attorneys, voting rights advocates and national reporters have descended on Mississippi over the past 48 hours, scrambling to make sense of what remaining ballots are out, when they would be counted and how Colom found himself in striking distance of pulling off a victory in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in decades.  

At a breakfast event in Jackson on Thursday morning, Colom greeted a throng of jubilant volunteers and said he had little doubt the race was breaking in his direction. 

“Anybody out there that does an analysis knows where this is going. The affidavit (vote) is always moving in Democratic favor in Mississippi,” Colom said. “You look at the ballots that are left, it’s going in our favor, absolutely.”

Spokespeople for Hyde-Smith’s campaign did not immediately offer a comment about where the number stood on Thursday. 

The Associated Press showed about 10% of the vote remained uncounted in Hinds County, the most populous area of the state and a Democratic stronghold. Election officials in Hinds County have said they expect the review of remaining ballots, most of which are absentee and affidavit ballots, to take days. 

Ballots also remained uncounted in areas along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in the Jackson suburb of Rankin County, both areas Hyde-Smith won. 

Colom did not speculate how long it would take for the remaining ballots to be counted, but said he is confident “Mississippi has decided to go in a new direction.” 

“I’m proud of the lawyers that we’ve got, the organizers we have that are on the ground making sure the law is followed, and that you know we do what we can,” Colom said. “I’m very excited where we are.”  

Election lawyers descend on Mississippi

Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight’s CEO, said in a statement that “Mississippians turned out in historic numbers” and that the organization would work to “defend the will of the people.” 

“Right now, Scott Colom is ahead, and we are confident that when the votes are tallied, he will be Mississippi’s next U.S. Senator.”

Semafor congressional reporter Nicholas Wu reported on Thursday that the U.S. House Black Caucus’ political arm is “aggressively fundraising for recounts in Mississippi” and a congressional race in North Carolina. 

Mississippi has no automatic recount law. A recount would happen only if a court ordered it. For that to happen, a campaign or political party would have to file a lawsuit against a county or county election commission. 

A state judge would likely hear the case on an expedited basis, and the lower court’s decision would be appealable to the Mississippi Supreme Court. 

After election results are certified, campaigns can conduct ballot box examinations, which can be used as evidence in a lawsuit. The dispute over which affidavit ballots are accepted and rejected would likely be the subject of litigation. 

If a court fight ensued, it could be a disjointed, chaotic process. Mississippi law does not establish a system for challenging ballots on a statewide scale, only on a county-by-county basis. 

How Democrat Colom pulled ahead of a GOP senator

The razor-thin margin has national pundits wondering how a Democrat is on the cusp of managing a stunning upset in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat in over four decades or elected a Black person to the chamber since Reconstruction. 

Colom managed to crack the GOP’s iron grip on the state by turning out large numbers of Black voters, flipping several crucial swing counties blue and convincing Republicans to cross over and vote for him. 

The most surprising feat was Colom winning DeSoto County, a reliably Republican stronghold in a Memphis suburb, by seven percentage points, something Democrats would have viewed as unthinkable last year. 

In 2020, Hyde-Smith won the county with 56% of the vote, while Democrat Mike Espy got 40%. Now Colom has flipped the script and carried the county by 51%, while Hyde-Smith trails at 45%. 

Colom also tempered his losses in Harrison County, a populous coast county that has swamped statewide Democratic candidates over the last decade and become a red firewall for the state GOP. 

In 2020, Hyde-Smith trounced Espy in Harrison County by 17 percentage points. This year, only four percentage points separate Hyde-Smith and Colom. 

The Democratic nominee also managed to flip Lafayette and Madison counties, two majority-white, affluent areas of the state that have become swing areas in recent elections. Brandon Presley, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2023, lost those two areas, but Colom narrowly won them 

Colom said he dramatically overperformed a “generic Democrat” in counties across the state and believed Hyde-Smith’s negative ads had backfired because he visited so many voters in person. 

A federal judge sentenced former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens to 41 months and former Jackson City Councilmember Aaron Banks to 45 months on Thursday, nearly two years to the day after federal prosecutors brought bribery charges against the two and Jackson’s mayor at the time, Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

As he handed down Owens’ sentence, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III described his decision as “somber” but said Owens still had a bright future. 

“I actually think the future you have in front of you is better than the one that you were going down,” said the judge, who also ordered Owens to pay a $100,000 fine.

Jordan called Owens the “ringleader” of a bribery scheme spawned by an undercover FBI operation in Jackson in 2023.

Owens told the judge he had tarnished his family name. 

“When a case says ‘United States versus Jody Owens,’ what I want you to know is my son is Jody Owens, my father is Jody Owens, my great-grandfather is Jody Moncure,” he said. 

Owens apologized to his parents, his wife, his children, his former employees in the Hinds DA’s office and to the court. He did not offer an apology to the people of Hinds County. 

As the president of the Jackson City Council, Banks said he had a responsibility to protect the public trust. 

“The people of Jackson deserved better from me,” he said. 

Other Jacksonians ensnared in the case have yet to be sentenced, including former Jackson City Councilmember Angelique Lee and Owens’ cousin, Sherik “Marve” Smith.

The proceedings began with lengthy arguments from Lumumba and Banks over their presentencing reports, which judges use to help determine what punishment a defendant gets.

Owens, Banks, Lumumba and their attorneys sat together on the right side of the courtroom. The gallery was sparse, and Lumumba’s supporters left shortly after the judge took the former mayor’s objections to the presentencing report.

Lumumba, who attended Thursday’s hearing, contested the government’s recommended prison time, which Jordan will consider when he sentences the former mayor on Nov. 20. The judge foreshadowed that hearing when he said on Thursday that Lumumba could face between 37 and 46 months in prison.

Federal prosecutors indicted Owens, Lumumba and Banks on Nov. 7, 2024, after years of investigating suspected wrongdoing in Jackson. Mississippi Today previously reported that the capital city caught the attention of federal authorities during a yearslong conflict between Lumumba and the Jackson City Council over the selection of a garbage collection vendor. 

No charges ever arose from that matter. Instead, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a sting operation in 2023 and deployed two undercover FBI agents to pose as out-of-state real estate developers seeking to build a convention center hotel in downtown Jackson. 

Owens wound up going into business with them, serving as an intermediary to Lumumba, Banks and other Jackson officials, according to the federal indictment. 

The DA was a registered agent for the developers’ company in Mississippi, organized a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, fundraiser for Lumumba on their behalf, and used his campaign account to pay off Lee’s campaign debt to a local printing company, allegedly in exchange for her future vote.

Owens also gave Banks a $10,000 bribe and hired Banks’ daughter for an internship at the DA’s office that prosecutors asserted was funded by the purported developers.

The three former Jackson officials and a federal prosecutor appeared at times to relitigate the nature of the scheme. 

As Jordan evaluated Lumumba’s objections, the judge noted the mayor had taken a $50,000 bribe from Owens in exchange for moving up the city’s bid deadline. 

“The ask was to move the date of the RFQ,” Jordan said, referring to so-called requests for quotations, which is part of the project bidding process. 

Not so, responded Dave Fulcher, the federal prosecutor leading the case. 

“That is a strawman that has been set up by Lumumba’s counsel,” he said. “The bribery scheme was not, ‘We need him to move the RFQ.’ The bribery scheme was, ‘We need him involved.’” 

Owens was elected district attorney in 2019. His family has helped develop parts of southern Hinds County. 

Gary Kohlman, an out-of-state attorney representing Owens, called the portrayal of Owens in the presentencing report “unsettling” and asked the judge to consider that Owens was a complex person as evidenced by the dozens of supportive letters written by his family and friends. 

“It can’t be, in other words, that he led some complete double life for 40-something years doing all the work he did,” Kohlman said. 

“I totally accept that and agree,” Jordan responded. “Almost every defendant that comes in here, I can find something good in them.” 

But the judge noted that Owens discussed a bribery scheme with the faux developers the very first time he met them in person. 

“This happened before any jets, before any liquor was bought or any other entertainment was provided,” the judge said. “And during this meeting, he never said, ‘This was wrong, we can’t do this, I’m the DA.’ But he did tell the agents ‘if you want it, it’s yours.’” 

Banks, who was deemed indigent by the federal judge, represented Ward 6 in south Jackson from 2017 to 2025. A political organizer, he started working for the city during Lumumba’s father’s mayoral administration in 2013.

In the months before being drawn into the scheme, Banks told the judge, he was in the throes of “a season of personal desperation.” 

He said he had gone into debt assisting residents during the Jackson water crisis in 2022 and was stressed about raising money to run for mayor. 

“He was blindly motivated by his desire to become mayor of Jackson and unseat Lumumba,” said his court-appointed attorney, Carlos Tanner. “And that’s incredibly unfortunate.”

Banks and some of his family members cried as he walked out of the courtroom. He received a longer sentence than Owens in part because he had previously been convicted of two DUIs. He must also pay a $15,000 fine.

Tanner argued this was unfair, asserting that Banks played a smaller role in the bribery scheme than other participants, some of whom he asserted have not faced criminal prosecution. 

“The number of crimes that were committed in this episode are astounding,” he said.

Jordan said it would be hard to overstate the extent of the corruption in this case but that he would spare the public the most salacious details.

Before sentencing Banks, the judge suggested broader wrongdoing that might not yet be public. He referred to an incident, detailed in a presentencing report, in which Banks apparently promised to help an unknown person with city business if sent money by CashApp.

“I don’t think this is a one-time event based on what I’ve seen and read,” he said.

UPDATE, 11/5/2026: Added more photos, information about sentencing of Jackson City Councilmember Aaron Banks and more details from court hearing.

Tens of thousands of Mississippians covered by Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance will face higher premiums and fewer options during this year’s open enrollment period, experts say. 

This is the second consecutive year of double-digit premium increases nationally. The average benchmark premium will rise 23% in Mississippi in 2027, according to KFF data. Last year the state saw a 37% increase in the average premium. 

Many marketplace customers are eligible for income-based subsidies that are expected to help shield them from premium increases. In 2027, the income range for a single person to qualify is roughly $16,000 to $64,000 annually. 

But even those that qualify already face significant premium increases after enhanced subsidies that made insurance more affordable for more than 22 million Americans expired in December 2025. A large share of Mississippians switched to plans with higher out-of-pocket-costs last year after those subsidies expired. 

“It’s the same story we had last year,” said Michael Minor, who leads the Hernando-based Get Covered Mississippi, a statewide, faith-based coalition that helps connect Mississippians to health insurance options. “People are already struggling.”

Open enrollment began Sunday and will continue through Jan. 15. 

Nationally, average premiums will increase 13%. Health insurance plans across the board are seeing rates rise due to inflation and increasing healthcare costs, said Matthew McGough, a policy analyst at KFF. 

Marketplace premium costs are also affected by the downstream effects of the expiration of subsidies that made health insurance more affordable for customers, McGough said. Because more enrollees, and especially healthier people, dropped their coverage, the remaining group of people is smaller, sicker and more costly to insure. 

McGough said he expects marketplace enrollment to continue to decline into 2027. 

“To what extent, I think that remains to be seen,” he said. 

Mississippians will also see fewer options when they shop for plans. Two insurers previously offering plans on the state’s marketplace will not offer plans in 2027: Cigna Healthcare and Molina Healthcare. Three plans, UnitedHealthcare, Oscar Health and Ambetter from Magnolia Health, will continue offering coverage. 

The more limited options for coverage comes at the same time as a temporary freeze on new broker registrations as a part of a federal anti-fraud crackdown and decreased funding for navigators who provide assistance to people shopping for and enrolling in health coverage through the marketplace.

“Together, consumers are potentially going to have less choice and a more difficult time finding avenues to sign up,” McGough said.

Some lawfully present immigrants will lose eligibility for federal financial assistance for marketplace plans in 2027, including refugees and asylees without a green card and people on work visas, among others. Others, including lawful permanent residents, or “green card” holders, will still be eligible for subsidies. 

Declining marketplace enrollment in Mississippi

When Congress first authorized expanded subsidies for marketplace plans in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi was one of the states that benefitted the most from the increased federal support, in part because state lawmakers, for over a decade, have chosen not to expand Medicaid. 

Marketplace enrollment peaked in 2025 with over 300,000 people enrolled in plans statewide. 

With the enhanced subsidies, marketplace premiums for people renewing their coverage in 2026 more than doubled on average, according to KFF. Mississippi saw one of the steepest declines in coverage. 

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said enrollments have since dropped by half. He said as of Oct. 28, enrollments fell to 135,000 people among the three insurers that will continue to offer plans next year. He said the two plans leaving the marketplace next year have few remaining beneficiaries.

Mississippi’s declining marketplace rolls may also have been impacted by federal efforts to eliminate fraud. 

The Trump administration in September cancelled 315,000 “unauthorized” policies covering more than 760,000 people nationwide, claiming fraud and improper enrollment. A small number of people were errantly disenrolled and later reinstated. 

Marketplace insurers reported that over 2,500 members were disenrolled in Mississippi, said Beth Reiss, communications director for the Mississippi Insurance Department.

Efforts to revoke the charter of a Canton school are on pause for at least a month.

On Monday, Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Tametrice Hodges-Linzey granted SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy a temporary restraining order against the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board. School leadership requested the order on Oct. 30, four days after the board voted to revoke its charter for severe financial mismanagement.

This is the first time the state is revoking a school’s charter — and navigating an appeal of that decision — since 2013, when Mississippi’s charter school law went into effect.

SR1 school leadership is appealing the board’s decision and filed its restraining order request in Hinds County chancery court because the authorizer board is based in Jackson. Jamie Travis, the school’s attorney, argued in the recent court filing that authorizer board staff should not be allowed to start the process of revoking the school’s charter while an appeal is pending. 

The board voted on Oct. 26 to revoke the school’s charter. The authorizer board mandated that the school cease operations by the end of the year. 

Read more: Dysfunction put Canton school’s charter at risk

Travis contended in the Oct. 30 court filing that authorizer board members did not adequately prove mismanagement. He said the board was unwilling to wait on the school’s latest audit, which came out Oct. 7. Instead, the board held a hearing in May to determine whether to revoke the school’s charter. The audit lacked serious findings and would clear up concerns about the schools’ finances, Travis said. Travis also argued that the authorizer board did not provide enough technical support to charter school leaders.

Travis also argued in the court filings that the authorizer board is driving away students and staff before an appeal can be heard. He described an Oct. 28 incident as an example of interference by the board. 

That day, Lisa Karmacharya, the authorizer board’s executive director, showed up at the school during an internal staff meeting. Tamu Green, the school’s chief executive officer, opened the door for Karmacharya, but she had not been invited, Travis said. 

Authorizer board policy mandates close-out procedures start within a day of the vote to revoke a school’s charter, and board staff must hold meetings to close out school finances and provide information to parents and staff. State law and agency policy also allows authorizer board staff to conduct on-site inspections of schools. In an interview Wednesday with Mississippi Today, Travis disputed whether state law supports unannounced on-site visits.

School officials must also secure financial records and schedule time for school finance team members and charter authorizer board staff to review the closed-out records. There must be a separate meeting between staff of the authorizer board and school to discuss the details of the school’s operating status.

School officials must also provide contact information for parents and staff so the authorizer board can notify them about the school’s operating status. Board policy requires notifying parents and staff within five and 10 days, respectively. However, SR1 charter school officials did not provide the necessary contact information by the agency’s deadline, according to Karmacharya. 

Karmacharya told Mississippi Today on Wednesday she felt it was important that school staff gain clarity about the authorizer board’s decision to revoke the school’s charter.

Dorlisa Hutton, the school’s vice president, did not respond to a request for comment. She hung up the phone when Mississippi Today contacted her Wednesday. Green did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hodges-Linzey will need to rule on whether to overturn the authorizer board’s decision to revoke the school’s charter.

Appeals of agency decisions made after administrative hearings, or judicial reviews, are limited to certain criteria in Mississippi. Travis, on behalf of SR1 CPSA, must prove that the authorizer board’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by fact, exceeded the agency’s authority or violated the school’s constitutional rights.

Lawmakers on Wednesday considered steps to further restrict kratom, a debate reignited by the recent deaths of two University of Mississippi students who were found near suspected kratom derivatives.

Members of the House Drug Policy Committee, led by Rep. Beth Waldo, a Republican from Pontotoc, heard testimony from state health officials, law enforcement officers and doctors as well as Mississippians who have used kratom. Several health and law enforcement officials advised legislators to classify all forms of kratom and its synthetic derivatives as controlled substances. 

In doing so, they echoed the mother of Robert Strang, one of the two University of Mississippi students who died in September. She blamed her son’s death on failed enforcement of federal drug regulations and implored lawmakers to ban the substances. 

“My position is clear. All kratom products need to be banned,” Rebecca Strang of Atlanta told lawmakers Wednesday. 

Over 5 million Americans have used a kratom product in their lifetime, according to a recent study from the Journal of Addiction Medicine. Derived from a tropical evergreen tree native to Southeast Asia, kratom leaf herbal products and concentrated or synthetic kratom-derived products are widely sold in gas stations and tobacco or vape shops.

Critics of kratom argue that it is a highly addictive and dangerous drug that produces stimulant- and opioid-like effects, and that synthetic kratom products are difficult to regulate. But advocates argue it can be an effective tool for treating opioid use disorder, chronic pain and depression.

In August, the Department of Justice announced the temporary emergency scheduling of some potent kratom-related compounds. The action did not apply to traditional botanical kratom. 

As of January, 30 states had laws regulating kratom or its components. Six states, including Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana, classify the substance’s primary chemical compounds as controlled substances, resulting in kratom products being banned. 

More than 30 counties and cities in Mississippi have restricted or banned the product.

Mississippi restricted kratom purchases to people ages 21 and older and prohibited sales for potent kratom extracts in 2025. The bill, authored by Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves, instituted fines for people under 21 who buy or possess kratom and retailers that sell it to them.

But several speakers on Wednesday told House members the law did not go far enough to protect the public. 

Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutchen, who also serves as the president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police, said the law was not sufficient because it sets low fines — up to $1,000 for selling a restricted product — and requires law enforcement officers to test products for compliance.

“The law is set up for us to fail,” McCutchen said. 

Col. Phillip Pope, the director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, agreed, adding that to enforce the law, officials must buy the products from gas stations and send them to laboratories for testing using taxpayer dollars. 

State health officials, including State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney, who has a subspecialty board certification in addiction medicine, and Dr. Tom Recore, the Department of Mental Health’s medical director, have recommended scheduling kratom as a controlled substance. 

Philip Chamblee, the executive director of the Mississippi Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores Association, said the organization’s board voted unanimously last week to support a statewide ban on the sale of all kratom products. 

Some speakers argued that lawmakers should consider the distinction between natural forms of kratom and more potent synthetic derivatives. 

Sheldon Bradshaw, an attorney representing Botanicals for Better Health and Wellness and former chief counsel for the Food and Drug Administration, said natural forms of kratom have been unfairly associated with the University of Mississippi student deaths. 

He said synthetic kratom derivatives often market themselves to suggest they are natural products. 

“The snake oil salesmen want people to believe they’re kratom, but they’re not kratom,” Bradshaw said. 

During the hearing, Sherry Owings, 63, of Mississippi, said she began using kratom after struggling with chronic pain and the side effects of prescription medications. She said kratom has improved her quality of life. 

“I don’t want to go backwards,” she said, advocating regulation and transparency about the ingredients in kratom but urging lawmakers not to restrict natural forms of the substance.  

Officials said more Mississippians are seeking help for kratom addiction.

Wendy Bailey, the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, said the agency’s helpline has received a sharp increase in calls over the last two months from callers experiencing addiction to kratom.

Among those calls, she described one man struggling to manage withdrawal symptoms and a nurse who began taking kratom for fatigue before losing her job due to her addiction. 

“I think we have the opportunity to approach this from a public policy perspective,” Bailey said.

Five Black governors will serve at the same time for the first time in America’s history. Hours after Black governors-elect on opposite sides of the political spectrum became firsts, two more wins followed, and an incumbent won reelection. 

Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in American history. Republican Byron Donalds has become Florida’s first Black governor in his state. Democrats David Crowley in Wisconsin and Aaron Ford became the first Black governors of their states. And Wes Moore easily won a second term as Maryland’s governor. 

Before Tuesday night, only three Black candidates had been elected governor – and they’d all been Black men and Democrats. 

This year’s gubernatorial pool was politically diverse, and all the candidates wanted the focus to be on their policies, not their identities, as they made history.

Incumbent Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who was reelected Tuesday, joined the ranks of Black governors in 2022, following in the footsteps of Virginia’s Doug Wilder and Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick. Wilder was elected Virginia’s first Black governor in 1989. Patrick was elected in Massachusetts in 2006 and reelected in 2010.  

Earlier this year in response to the redistricting battles across the country, Moore told Capital B, “It’s the greatest form of political redlining we’ve seen in generations, where we are intentionally trying to disenfranchise Black voters and trying to minimize Black leadership in a way that frankly we have not seen since Reconstruction.”

After Democrats made history in several states and retook Congress, from the Mid-Atlantic to the South to even the West Coast, five of the eight Black gubernatorial candidates will head to the governor’s mansion in 2027.

Republicans

Byron Donalds in Florida

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds was elected Tuesday to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“We have won a massive victory,” Donalds told supporters at an election night event after The Associated Press called the race in the GOP primary in August.

Donalds defeated David Jolly, a Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat. The Brooklyn, New York, native has represented Florida’s 19th District in the state’s southwest since 2021. 

Florida A&M students grilled the gubernatorial candidate during a town hall meeting. He has referenced his time at the HBCU from 1996 to 1999, even though he didn’t graduate from the school. Donald’s campaign focused on the economy, healthcare, law and order, education and affordability.

Lisa Demuth in Minnesota

Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar defeated Republican state House Speaker Demuth in a race shaped by a widespread fraud scandal in state government, according to The Associated Press. Demuth was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2018. It was the first all-woman major-party race for governor in Minnesota history. In September, Demuth joined a growing number of Republican candidates calling an end to the war in Iran. 

Demuth’s campaign has focused on education, affordability, public safety and fraud prevention. Despite frequent portrayals of Minnesota as unique or among the worst in the nation at preventing fraud from government programs in recent years, data shows otherwise.

John James in Michigan

The Republican congressman had called himself the “only candidate for governor who is a true outsider to Lansing,” the state’s capital city. Early Wednesday, AP projected he’d been defeated by Democrat Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state.

James became the first Black Republican elected to Congress when he was elected to represent the state’s 10th Congressional District in 2022. He voted to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and anti-abortion legislation. He’s also co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that supports the Great Lakes and nuclear prevention. James continues to face ethical complaints from constituents who allege he misused taxpayer money to fund his gubernatorial campaign. In 2026 the claims were dismissed, finding “no reasonable justification.”

Democrats

Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia

The former Atlanta mayor defeated wealthy Republican businessman Rick Jackson on Tuesday. A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll had Jackson and Bottoms in a statistical dead heat. Bottoms was the second Black woman in state history to run for governor on a major party ticket. Stacey Abrams became the first in 2018 when she launched the first of her two historic bids. 

In recent ads from Jackson’s campaign, Bottoms has been accused of abandoning Atlanta, but she served her full term and chose not to seek a second term to focus on her family. She campaigned on education, housing, healthcare, and helping farmers and small businesses.

David Crowley in Wisconsin

Democrat Crowley defeated Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, according to AP. Crowley’s campaign focused on “lowering costs for working families” and bringing more jobs to Wisconsin. The county executive’s win over Trump loyalist Tiffany marks the first time in Wisconsin’s 178-year history that Democrats will hold the governor’s office for more than eight consecutive years. 

“Because of you all, a boy facing eviction will now live in the governor’s mansion,” Crowley told cheering supporters in Milwaukee, just a couple of miles from where he grew up.

Aaron Ford in Nevada

The Democratic attorney general defeated Republican incumbent Joe Lombardo in the key battleground state. Nevada will play a critical role in the next presidential election.

Ford has served as the state’s top prosecutor since 2019. Throughout his campaign, he described growing up in poverty and going to school hungry. He explained how he became a math teacher before earning his law degree, and highlighted efforts to fight the Trump administration.

“This campaign didn’t happen by accident,” Ford said at a watch party on Tuesday, AP reported. “It happened because of faith, because of family, because of hard work, and because the people of Nevada decided that our best days are still ahead of us.”

Jermaine Johnson in South Carolina

Johnson, a representative in the South Carolina House, was defeated by Republican Alan Wilson, who is the state’s attorney general.

His campaign has focused on his work advocating for better infrastructure, broadband access, and medical access for rural communities, among other issues.

Wes Moore in Maryland

The incumbent won a second term. Most polls showed him with a considerable lead over Republican Dan Cox. Cox had been critical of Moore’s support for changing the state constitution, which currently requires congressional districts to be contiguous and follow natural boundaries.

“This is outrageous. This is not democracy. Marylanders should not surrender their protection of community boundaries under our own state constitution,” Cox said. 

In an interview with Capital B about redistricting earlier this year, Moore said, “I will never move on from fighting for our democracy, and it is something that I know is going to be a long-term fight.”

Capital B is a local and national nonprofit news organization that produces in-depth journalism on topics of crucial importance to Black people across the country, such as politics, health, criminal justice, the environment, and rural issues.