- Magnolia Tribune first called the race for Branning last Wednesday, November 27. Elections officials have been working through absentee ballots for the last week.
Results on Friday, December 6, have confirmed that State Senator Jenifer Branning has indeed defeated incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens in the Central Mississippi Supreme Court race.
Election officials have been working through absentee ballots for the last week in the hotly contested race that saw the two candidates separated by just over 3,000 as election night turned into the next morning.
Magnolia Tribune first called the race for Branning last Wednesday, November 27, while the Associated Press waited until Friday to declare her the winner.
Results show that Branning won 50.6 percent of the vote to Kitchens’ 49.4 percent in the runoff election.
The District 1, Position 3 seat on the state’s High Court represents much of the Delta which traditionally leans Democrat in partisan elections. The area consists of the counties of Bolivar, Claiborne, Copiah, Hinds, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Jefferson, Kemper, Lauderdale, Leake, Madison, Neshoba, Newton, Noxubee, Rankin, Scott, Sharkey, Sunflower, Warren, Washington, and Yazoo.
Branning, 45, has represented State Senate District 18 since 2016 as a Republican. She drew endorsements this cycle from the Mississippi Republican Party as well as numerous GOP elected officials including Governor Tate Reeves and Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann.
Kitchens, 81, has served on the state Supreme Court since 2008. He is a former three-term District Attorney and has been endorsed by high profile state Democrats in each of his prior judicial campaigns. This cycle, Congressman Bennie Thompson and former gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley were among the Democratic leaders backing Kitchens’ re-election. Kitchens was also backed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Fund.
In 2008, Kitchens initially won the seat with just over 53 percent of the vote in a three-person race. He then won re-election in 2016 over Kenny Griffis, drawing 53.5 percent.
In the November 5th General Election, Branning led the five-person non-partisan field with nearly 42 percent of the vote. Kitchens came in second with just under 36 percent of vote, 20,000 less votes than Branning.
The two advanced to the runoff after reportedly raising nearly $1 million ahead of the November 5th election, with Branning’s campaign pulling in nearly two-thirds of the donations.
Frank Corder
