Senator Cindy Hyde Smith spent two days in Clarksdale this week learning about the community’s successes and enjoying Delta culture.
The Senator’s visit was part of a five stop tour of the Delta Wednesday that began in Clarksdale. Her visit here included stops at PeopleShores and Saf-T-Cart.
Hyde-Smith said she knows agriculture and represents Delta farmers well in Washington.
Passing the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) was one of the best votes I have ever taken,” she said. “That one piece of legislation affected 176,000 jobs and billions of dollars in our economy.”
She said trade deals Congress and President Donald Trump are working on with China and Japan will continue to help farmers and the U.S. economy.
Hyde-Smith serves on the Agriculture Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Smith is the junior Senator from Mississippi, and has held the office since 2018. A member of the Republican Party, she was previously the Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce and a member of the Mississippi State Senate.
Born in Brookhaven, Hyde-Smith was elected to the Mississippi State Senate as a Democrat in 1999 and served there 12 years. In 2010 Hyde-Smith switched parties and became a Republican, citing her conservative beliefs.
She was elected Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner in 2011, the first woman elected to that office. In March 2018 Gov. Phil Bryant announced his intention to appoint Hyde-Smith to the Senate seat being vacated due to the resignation of Thad Cochran. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.
Hyde-Smith was a candidate in the 2018 U.S. Senate special election for the remainder of Cochran's term, which expires in 2021. She faced former U.S. Representative Mike Espy in Nov. 2018 by a narrow margin. Espy, a Democrat, is running against her again this year and will probably face her in the Nov. 3 General Election.
