Primary Outlook: Women Candidates in Mississippi

Kelly Dittmar

Gender Watch 2018From March to December 2018, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation (BLFF) and the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) partnered to offer Gender Watch 2018, which tracked, analyzed, and illuminated gender dynamics in the 2018 midterm elections. With the help of expert scholars and practitioners, Gender Watch 2018 furthered public understanding of how gender influences candidate strategy, voter engagement and expectations, media coverage, and electoral outcomes in campaigns. The blog below was written for Gender Watch 2018, as part of our collective effort to raise questions, suggest answers, and complicate popular discussions about gender’s role U.S. elections.

 

Ahead of the Mississippi primary election on June 5, 2018, we outline the numbers and proportions of women who have filed as candidates for congressional office. The data below also provide points of historical comparison to give context to today’s presence and potential success of women candidates.

All data are provided from the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. For a full list of the women candidates in MS primary races for congressional and statewide offices, see CAWP’s Election Watch page.

CONGRESS

Current: 1 of 6 members of the Mississippi congressional delegation (16.7%)
Filed: 2 (2D)
Percent of all Filed Congressional Candidates (D/R): 19% (4 of 21)

SENATE

Current: 1 of 2 senators (50%)

  • Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) became the first woman senator – and first congressman – to from Mississippi when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate in April 2018. She will compete in the November 6 jungle primary to serve out the remainder of the term.

Filed: 1 (1D)*

  • Omeria Scott (D) is the only woman candidate running in the June 5th primary for the U.S. Senate from Mississippi. She is running against 4 Democratic men to challenge incumbent Roger Wicker (R) in the general election.

*Does not include candidates for the November 6 jungle primary/special election for the U.S. Senate.

HOUSE

Current: 0 of 4 representative (0%)

  • No woman has ever represented Mississippi in the U.S. House.

Filed: 3 (3R)

  • 3 Republican women are running for the Republican nomination in Mississippi’s open seat contest in the 3rd congressional district. There is a total of 6 candidates in this race.
  • 0 Democratic women are running for the U.S. House from Mississippi this year.

Districts with Women Candidates: 1 of 4
Percent of all Filed House Candidates (D/R):  21.4% (3 of 14)
Percent of all Filed Democratic House Candidates:  0% (0 of 5)
Percent of all Filed Republican House Candidates: 33.3% (3 of 9)

Recent history: The number of women who filed for major party candidacy for the U.S. House in Mississippi in 2018 is not a record high. Like this year, 3 (2D, 1R) women candidates filed to run for the U.S. House in 2012, when 2 U.S. House seats in Mississippi were open. There is just one open seat this year.

  • This year marks the highest number of Republican women candidates for the U.S. House in the past decade.

THERE ARE NO STATEWIDE EXECUTIVE ELECTIONS IN MISSISSIPPI THIS YEAR.

Kelly Dittmar headshot

Kelly Dittmar

Kelly Dittmar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers–Camden and Director of Research and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is the co-author of A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018) (with Kira Sanbonmatsu and Susan J. Carroll) and author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns (Temple University Press, 2015).

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