Donald Trump has been elected the 47^th president of the United States, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, was convicted of felony charges, and survived two assassination attempts. He is only the second president to ever be elected to non-consecutive terms. The other was Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897).

Nationwide, as of 9:25 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, Trump had secured 277 Electoral College votes — 270 of the total 538 are needed to win the presidency. Democrat Vice President and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris had claimed 224.

In Mississippi, after 98% of all votes had been counted, Trump had won 61.1% and Harris had 37.7%. The other less-than 1% was divided between independent Robert Kennedy Jr., though he had pulled out of the race too late to be removed from the state’s ballot, and Chase Oliver with the Libertarian Party.

 

Lincoln County

In Lincoln County, Trump won overwhelmingly with 72% of the vote. Harris took 26.7%. Of the total 15,619 votes, 131 (0.8%) were divided between the remaining seven candidates and write-ins.

Though the totals do include the approximately 2,400 in-person absentee votes cast in the county, they do not include an additional 53 absentee votes that have yet to be received through the mail, three ballots held for ID, and 488 votes by affidavit. Even if all of these were votes for Harris as president, the Democrat candidate would only have 30% of the total vote, therefore they will not affect the final result for the office of president within the county.

 

Other Mississippi and local races

In the race for US Senate, incumbent Republican Roger F. Wicker won the race statewide with 63.2% of the vote. Democrat challenger Ty Pinkins won 36.4%. In Lincoln County, Wicker took 73% of the vote.

In the US House of Representatives contests, Lincoln County’s 3^rd Congressional District incumbent Republican Michael Guest won unopposed — taking 86.4% of Lincoln County.

In other House races in Mississippi, Republican incumbent Trent Kelly kept his seat in District 1; Democrat incumbent Bennie Thompson kept his position in District 2; and Republican incumbent Mike Ezell remained in office in District 4.

In State Supreme Court races, the uncontested seats were obviously kept by the incumbents — Robert P. Chamberlin in District 3-Position 1, and Jimmy Maxwell in District 3-Position 2. District 1-Position 3, currently held by incumbent Jim Kitchens, is headed to a runoff between Kitchens and State Senator Jennifer Branning.

District 2-Position 2, in which incumbent Dawn H. Beam faced challenger David P. Sullivan, went to Sullivan with 55% of the vote. The State numbers reflected Lincoln County, in which Beam received 33.7% of the vote to Sullivan’s 54.8%.

The only other contested race in the county was for Election Commissioner District 1. Democrat Verna Stine Byrd received 58.8% of the vote to Republican Rockie B. Netherland’s 35.4%. Incumbent Beverly Howard did not run for reelection.

Four more county races were uncontested — Election Commissioners in Districts 3 (Republican Missy Watts Rhodus) and 5 (Republican Jane S. James); and County School Board trustees in Educational Districts 1 (Diane Crotwell) and 2 (Billy Vaughn).