It’s fair to say that neither Pete Hunter nor Johnny McGlown expected to be sharing the spotlight with two candidates dueling it out in an election that has the country’s attention.
But that’s the case as Hunter and McGlown’s names will appear on the same ballot as Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy when Coahoma County voters cast ballots in the runoff election this Tuesday, Nov. 27.
While McGlown had the most votes in the Nov. 6 general election in the race for a commissioner’s seat on the Yazoo Mississippi Delta Levee Board, his 2,117 votes were only 32.4 percent of the 6,533 votes that were cast. In Mississippi, the winning candidate must have a majority of the vote or there is a runoff election.
Hunter took advantage of a big boost from the 486 absentee voters to secure second place, finishing with 1,702 votes (or 26.05 percent). He rallied to beat third-place finisher Ralph Simpson by 127 votes as Simpson finished with 1,575 votes (24.11%).
Since the end of the general election, Simpson has endorsed McGlown for the levee board seat. McGlown currently occupies the post as he was appointed earlier this year by Coahoma County supervisors to fill the seat after the death of commissioner Willie Gregory. The winner will fill out the remaining two years of Gregory’s term.
Polls will be open at all 18 of the county’s voting precincts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Those voting will need to bring a photo ID.
Absentee voting will be available Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon at the circuit court clerk’s office at the Coahoma County Courthouse. As of Tuesday morning, an estimated 120 absentee votes had been cast at the clerk’s office.
Another race on the ballot features Hyde-Smith and Espy fighting it out for the U.S. Senate seat that had been formerly occupied by Thad Cochran. It is the last Senate seat currently up for grabs in the 2018 midterm campaign.
Hyde-Smith was appointed to the seat earlier this year, while Espy is a former cabinet secretary under President Bill Clinton and has strong local ties as his brother, Henry, formerly served as the mayor of Clarksdale and his nephew, Chuck, is the city’s current mayor.
In the general election, Coahoma County voters, as expected, heavily backed Espy as he claimed 4,576 (69.02%) of the 6,749 votes cast in the Senate race. Hyde-Smith was a distant second, finishing with 1,509 votes (22.76%).
The final race on the ballot will be the election of a judge for the Mississippi Court of Appeals between Deborah McDonald and Eric Hawkins. In the general election, Coahoma County voters supported McDonald with 56.23 percent (3,015 votes) as Hawkins was a distant second (29.52% or 1,583 votes).
Overall, 43.9 percent of the 15,359 registered voters in Coahoma County voted in the general election. It was one of the highest turnouts for a midterm election in several years.
