WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in central Mississippi and the state’s Delta and Gulf Coast areas will return to the polls Tuesday to resolve two judicial races in which no candidate received the vote majority needed in the Nov. 5 general election to avoid a runoff.
At stake are seats on Mississippi’s two highest courts, the state Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals. Judges on both panels serve eight-year terms, the longest of any elected office in the state.
In the state Supreme Court race, Justice Jim Kitchens seeks a third term in District 1, also known as the Central District, which spans the state’s midsection from the Alabama border to the Delta region along the Mississippi River. Kitchens is the more senior of the Court’s two presiding justices, putting him next in line to serve as chief justice. He faces a challenge from Jenifer Branning, a Republican state senator in her third term. Branning was the top vote-getter in the general election, with 42% of the vote to 36% for Kitchens, with the rest split among three other candidates.
The courts are officially nonpartisan, but partisan fault lines have formed nonetheless in the Supreme Court race, with Democratic areas in the competitive district largely supporting Kitchens in the Nov. 5 election and Republican ones backing Branning. This was similar to the voting pattern in Kitchens’ 2016 reelection bid, when he won the support of the state’s Democratic areas and his opponent mainly drew support from Republican areas.
Branning has branded herself a “constitutional conservative” and rails against “liberal, activists judges” and “the radical left.” She has the endorsement of the state Republican Party.
Kitchens has issued dissents in high-profile death row appeals, including a September case in which he sided with a man on death row for a murder conviction where a key witness had since recanted her testimony. In 2018, he dissented in a pair of death row cases dealing with the use of the drug midazolam in state executions. Kitchens has the endorsement of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Fund, a civil rights organization.
Branning has had a sizable financial advantage over the incumbent since launching her campaign in February, thanks largely to a $250,000 personal loan she made to her campaign.
In the Court of Appeals race, Amy St. Pe’ and Jennifer Schloegel were the top two finishers in a competitive three-way contest on Nov. 5 to replace outgoing Judge Joel Smith. St. Pe’ placed first in the general election with 35% of the vote, followed by Schloegel with 33%. The Court’s 5th District is on the Gulf Coast in the southeastern corner of the state.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:
Runoff election day
Mississippi’s general election runoff will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 7 p.m. CT.
What’s on the ballot
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in runoff elections for seats on the state Supreme Court and state Appeals Court.
Who gets to vote
Any voter in Supreme Court District 1 or Appeals Court District 5 who registered for the Nov. 5 general election may participate in the general election runoff.
Decision notes
Although Mississippi is reliably Republican in statewide elections, the Supreme Court’s Central District is home to much of the state’s Democratic strongholds, including the Jackson area and the counties in the Mississippi Delta region. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both carried the Central District in their 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, while Kamala Harris trailed Donald Trump by less than a percentage point in 2024.
In the general election, Branning led in 10 of the 11 counties Trump carried, while Kitchens carried 10 of the 11 counties that Harris, Biden and Clinton all won in their campaigns.
The 11 Trump counties made up about 62% of the total general election vote, compared to about 38% for the 11 Harris counties. In order to win, Kitchens would need to build on his leads in the counties he carried Nov. 5 and peel off enough of the votes cast for the three other candidates in areas that Trump won. That was his path to victory in his 2016 reelection race, when he carried the same 10 Harris/Biden/Clinton counties, as well as his home county of Copiah and six other counties.
