JACKSON - Two state legislators, a small-town mayor and political unknowns are among the candidates attempting to unseat Mississippi's congressional delegation.
By Wednesday's 5 p.m. qualifying deadline, Mississippi's Democratic and Republican parties had fielded candidates for this year's congressional races.
A political expert says most of the candidates are longshots, but there's a legitimate contender in the 2nd Congressional District race.
Only U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., who won election in 1996, will run unopposed. No one had filed qualifying papers challenging him in the 3rd Congressional District.
Party primaries are June 6. The general election is Nov. 7.
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is unopposed in the GOP primary. He'll face the winner of the Democratic primary, where four candidates, including state Rep. Erik Fleming of Clinton, are vying for his seat.
The other Democrats are Bill Bowlin, a business consultant from Hickory Flat, James O'Keefe, a minister and businessman from Long Beach, and Hattiesburg retiree Catherine M. Starr. Also qualifying to run against Lott was Harold M. Taylor of Nesbit, a Libertarian.
Lott's counterpart on Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., does not run this year.
Lott had toyed with the idea of retiring, but in mid-January the 64-year-old Republican told a hometown crowd in Pascagoula he would seek a fourth term to continue working on federal issues related to the state's recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Fleming ran unsuccessfully for Jackson City Council in 1989 and 1997. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Hinds County tax collector in 1991.
Mississippi's other Republican congressman, U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker, doesn't have an opponent in the GOP primary. His Democratic challengers are Joe Forsythe, a retired industrial mechanic from Horn Lake; Columbus attorney William Bambach; Ken Hurt, a political consultant from Verona; and Oxford businessman Ron Shapiro.
Wicker, elected to Congress in 1994, is a former state senator who serves on the appropriations and budget committees.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is opposed in the 2nd District's Democratic primary by state Rep. Chuck Espy of Clarksdale and Dorothy Benford, a retiree from Jackson.
Thompson, who has been in Congress 13 years, is a leading member of the Homeland Security Committee.
Espy is the nephew of former 2nd District U.S. Rep. Mike
Espy, who left Congress in 1993 to be President Clinton's first secretary of agriculture. Chuck Espy's father, Henry, is mayor of Clarksdale.
Chuck Espy has served in the Mississippi House since 2000.
Thompson's race against Espy could be one of the most interesting of the elections, said Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University.
"The race in the Delta is going to be a legitimate wire-to-wire race. The Espy name is big over there," said Wiseman. "Thompson will have to run harder than he has in the past."
The winner of the 2nd District Democratic primary will face Tchula Mayor Yvonne Brown, 53, a Republican, in the general election.
U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, a Democrat, could face a familiar opponent in the general election. Randy McDonnel, 58, a Republican accountant from Biloxi, who unsuccessfully ran against Taylor in 1998 and 2000, has qualified again this year.
"Gene Taylor beat me pretty bad. I'm probably not a good candidate," McDonnel said. "If somebody legitimate comes into the race, I'll probably drop out. People should have a choice."
Taylor, who won election in 1989, is a member the House Armed Services Committee and a ranking member of the Projections Forces subcommittee.
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