Ty Pinkins, January 2024 (Photo: Jeremy Pittari/Magnolia Tribune)
- Over the past two years, the once proud Delta Democrat says party bosses have threatened him and offered incentives to end his Senate campaign. He’s now running as an Independent.
Ty Pinkins was the Mississippi Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024. Prior to that, he dutifully suspended his Senate campaign when asked to step in as the party’s replacement candidate in the Secretary of State race in 2023.
With relatively little support from the party faithful, the U.S. Army veteran, attorney, author, and son of the Mississippi Delta lost both races by 20 points or more to well-funded Republican incumbents.
Still believing he could raise his profile and increase his competitiveness, Pinkins stepped back up to again run for the U.S. Senate in the coming 2026 midterms, announcing a third statewide run for office in as many years.
However, Pinkins now says he is officially leaving the Democratic Party, making him the second high-profile statewide nominee to leave the party in less than a year. Instead, he will continue his campaign for the Senate as an Independent.
Shuwaski Young, a former congressional candidate and the Democrats’ nominee for Secretary of State that Pinkins replaced, announced in October 2024 that he was leaving the Democratic Party, saying the party was “unrecognizable.” Young has since joined the Republican Party and has announced his intention to run in the GOP Primary for Secretary of State in 2027.
Similar to Young, Pinkins now claims he has had enough of the Democratic Party’s “culture that, far too often, devours its own.”
“I didn’t make this decision lightly,” said Pinkins. “But I made it with clarity, purpose, and a deep belief in putting people over party.”
Money over Mission
Pinkins said Tuesday that his personal experiences with Democratic Party insiders is that they have prioritized fundraising over values and vision.
“When I first entered this race, party officials didn’t ask me about healthcare, veterans, or education,” Pinkins said in a statement. “They asked how much money I had. And when I refused to step aside for their handpicked, millionaire-backed candidate, they tried to buy me off—and then they threatened me. But I didn’t serve 21 years in uniform to be bullied by party bosses.”
Mississippi Democratic Party chairman, State Rep. Cheikh Taylor, who took the reins at the party in July 2023 amidst a leadership shakeup that ousted former party boss Tyree Irving, has not responded to requests for comment on Pinkins’ claims as of this reporting.
Pinkins told Magnolia Tribune that he was urged – more than once – to “make room” for someone else.
“When I didn’t, I was offered incentives to drop out. When I still refused, I was threatened politically,” Pinkins said.
He said he would not name names.
“That’s not my focus,” Pinkins said. “What matters is that this kind of behavior is normalized in a political system that has stopped listening to the people. That’s why I made the decision to leave the party and run as an Independent. I’m not here to play insider politics.”
It is widely rumored that Democrat leadership has been courting Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom, with chairman Taylor mentioning previously that U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wants Colom to run in 2026. In the 2015 election cycle, left-leaning financier George Soros was the sole funder to the closely named “Mississippi Safety & Justice PAC,” donating nearly $1 million to support Colom’s bid for District Attorney in the 16th Judicial District along with Robert Shuler-Smith’s re-election bid in Hinds County.
Gatekeepers and Earning It
In a post on Substack, Pinkins details a phone call with State Rep. Tracey Rosebud in 2023 where Pinkins says the fellow Delta Democrat was incensed that Pinkins did not get “permission” from the party “gatekeepers” before announcing a run for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Senator Roger Wicker.
That gatekeeping mentality, Pinkins said, has pushed the Mississippi Democratic Party to a point “where the party doesn’t just lack a bench—it’s created a climate where the next generation of leaders is too intimidated to even step up to bat, afraid they’ll be punished, ignored, or publicly ridiculed for daring to lead without permission.”
Pinkins goes on to tell of helping then-gubernatorial nominee Brandon Presley campaign in 2023 and being invited to a fundraiser for Presley’s Dirt Road Democrats PAC in April 2024. That PAC was said to be created to uplift rural candidates who are often overlooked by national donors and party infrastructure. Yet, Pinkins said Presley’s PAC did nothing to help him, a rural candidate in a rural area lacking resources. The PAC instead added more money to 2nd District Congressman Bennie Thompson’s already well funded campaign.
Pinkins then outlined how during the 2024 Democratic National Convention Congressman Thompson – Mississippi’s longest-serving and highest-ranking elected Democrat – stood before the state delegation in Chicago and declared he would not support Pinkins’ campaign, telling members, “He hasn’t earned it.”
“Let me be clear: it wasn’t the lack of support that bothered me. People have a right to back whomever they choose. That’s democracy. What stung deeply was knowing that he didn’t just withhold support—he actively encouraged others to do the same. At the national convention, no less. From the stage. Against the party’s own nominee for U.S. Senate,” Pinkins wrote. “That wasn’t neutrality. That was sabotage.”
Pinkins said the phrase “he hasn’t earned it” echoed in his mind from months earlier when at the Mississippi Democratic Party’s 2nd Congressional District Convention in Vicksburg the then-chair introduced him by saying, “We support Democrats, but they have to earn it.”
Pinkins wrote, “And was it not enough when, in 2023, the party chair asked me to pause my Senate campaign and run for Secretary of State—at the last minute, with less than 60 days until Election Day—because no one else would step up to give voters an option at the polls?”
He goes on to share how Other Cain, a member of the Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Committee, someone whose role it is to be neutral, committed “political malpractice” by ridiculing Pinkins’ campaign.
“No Republican could have launched a more condescending or dismissive attack. I was the Democratic Nominee. The only candidate standing between a Republican stronghold and six more years of neglect for Mississippi’s working families,” Pinkins shared. “And yet it was leaders within my own party who were leading the opposition.”
What’s Next?
Now running as an Independent, Pinkins told Magnolia Tribune that he still believes in many of the values the Democratic Party has historically stood for: expanding access to healthcare, defending voting rights, supporting working families, and advancing equal opportunity for all Americans.
“I also support comprehensive immigration reform—one that secures our borders, protects American workers, and provides a fair, humane path to citizenship for those who contribute to our economy and communities,” Pinkins said. “But I also believe in protecting individual freedoms—including the right to privacy, the right to make personal healthcare decisions, and the right to live free from government overreach.”
Pinkins said he is a gun owner who supports the Second Amendment but also supports “common-sense gun safety laws that keep our communities safe.”
“I believe in fiscal responsibility, too,” Pinkins said. “We need to balance the budget and reduce the national debt—not just for political talking points, but because our future depends on it.”
He wrote on Substack that he is running in 2026 “for those who’ve been told to wait their turn, to sit down, or to go through gatekeepers.”
“I’m running again for the United States Senate in 2026. Not with the backing of political insiders. Not with the blessing of party officials. And certainly not with the support of my own congressman, who is busy campaigning around the state for a millionaire’s son—the handpicked candidate of the monied elites and party establishment,” Pinkins wrote.
2026 Senate Field
As an Independent, Pinkins will face the party nominees in the November General Election.
During the full duration of his previous U.S. Senate campaign, which spanned nearly two years, Pinkins took in just over $1 million and now shows $4,000 cash on hand.
Currently, incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is being challenged by one candidate in the GOP Primary, Dr. Sarah Adlakha, a political newcomer and resident of Ocean Springs.
Hyde-Smith is showing over $700,000 cash on hand to zero reported by Adlakha.
Hyde-Smith served in the Mississippi Senate for three terms. She ran for Agriculture Commissioner in 2011, winning the race to become the first female to hold the office in state history. Hyde-Smith went on to win re-election in 2015, and three years later was appointed by former Governor Phil Bryant (R) to the U.S. Senate, again making state history as the first female to hold a federal office from Mississippi. Hyde-Smith won the 2018 special election to fill the unexpired U.S. Senate term, defeating former Agricultural Secretary Espy, a Democrat, in a runoff election by nearly 8 points. Hyde-Smith then won a full six-year term in 2020, again defeating Espy by 10 points.
Hyde-Smith’s re-election bid has been endorsed by President Donald Trump.
Adlakha, who moved to Mississippi 13 years ago, paused her psychiatric practice to help her husband establish his cardiology clinic and has run the business side of the practice for 11 years.
On the Democratic Party side, once Pinkins files to update his paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to change his party, only one candidate will remain as filed to run in 2026, that being newcomer Albert Littell of Long Beach. Littell reports zero cash on hand.
Frank Corder
