← 1972 November 5, 1978 267,302 187,541 45.3% 31.8% Start date November 5, 1978 | Maurice Dantin Charles Evers 187,541 133,646 31.8% 22.6% | |
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The 1978 United States Senate election in Mississippi was held on November 5, 1978. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator James Eastland decided to retire. Republican Thad Cochran won the open seat.
Contents
Democratic
Independent
Republican
Campaign
Evers was the first African American elected since the Reconstruction era to be mayor in any Mississippi city in 1969. He ran as an independent, and as a result his campaign divided the Democrats and allowed Cochran to win the senate seat with a 45 percent plurality. This made him the first Republican to win a statewide election in Mississippi in a century. Eastland resigned on December 27, 1978 to give Cochran a seniority advantage over new incoming senators.
References
United States Senate election in Mississippi, 1978 Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA