- Mississippi's Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith could become the first woman to represent the state in Congress.
- Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is expected to appoint Hyde-Smith to replace outgoing Sen. Thad Cochran.
- During the 2016 US presidential race, Hyde-Smith served as an agriculture adviser to Donald Trump's campaign.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The governor of Mississippi is appointing state Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith to succeed fellow Republican Thad Cochran in the U.S. Senate.
Hyde-Smith will be the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress once Cochran resigns April 1. She will immediately begin campaigning for a Nov. 6 special election to fill the rest of Cochran’s term, which expires in January 2020.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant and Hyde-Smith appeared together Wednesday in her hometown of Brookhaven, where he announced her appointment.
The 80-year-old Cochran announced March 5 that he will step down because of health problems. He was elected to the Senate in 1978 after six years in the House.
His decision creates two Senate races in deeply conservative Mississippi as Republicans are trying to maintain their slim Senate majority.
Hyde-Smith won a state Senate seat in 1999 as a Democrat. She switched to the GOP in late 2010 and was elected agriculture commissioner in 2011, holding the job since then. In 2016, she was one of many agriculture advisers to Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Bryant is a Trump supporter and has said he believes the president will campaign for his Senate appointee in the special election, which could attract several candidates.
Chris McDaniel, a tea party-backed state senator who nearly unseated Cochran in a bruising 2014 Republican primary, said last week that he is running in the special election. Democrat Mike Espy, who was President Bill Clinton's first agriculture secretary, also intends to run. Espy in 1986 became the first African-American in modern times to win a congressional seat in Mississippi, and he has publicly supported both Democrats and Republicans in various races.
Cochran's resignation creates two Senate races this year in Mississippi as Republicans are trying to maintain their slim Senate majority. Although it is a deeply conservative state, Democrats are hoping to capitalize on divisions among Republicans in hopes of winning a Nov. 27 runoff, if there is one.
Hyde-Smith served 12 years as a Democrat in the state Senate from a rural southwest Mississippi district, switching to the Republican Party in late 2010.
In 2011, she won a three-way GOP primary for agriculture commissioner without a runoff. She beat Democratic opponents even more easily in the 2011 and 2015 general elections.
Hyde-Smith is one of only four women ever elected to statewide office in Mississippi. It and Vermont are the only two U.S. states that never have elected a woman to Congress.
Bryant has said he was focused on naming a senator who could serve at least 20 years. Mississippi has a tradition of sending the same people to Washington for decades to build seniority and influence. Cochran is in his second stint as chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
SEE ALSO: Another top Republican has announced he will resign from Congress
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