AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Mississippi’s judicial runoff elections

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in central Mississippi and the Delta and Gulf Coast areas will return to the polls Tuesday for a runoff election to resolve two state judicial races in which no candidate received the required vote majority in the Nov. 5 general election. At stake are seats on Mississippi’s two highest courts, the state Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals. The courts are officially nonpartisan. But partisan fault lines have formed nonetheless in the Supreme Court race, where Justice Jim Kitchens faces a challenge from Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning in his bid for a third term in the court’s competitive Central District.