David Ronald Musgrove is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 62nd governor of Mississippi from 2000 to 2004. A Democrat, he previously served as the 29th lieutenant governor of Mississippi from 1996 to 2000. He was the Democratic nominee in the 2008 special election for one of Mississippi's seats in the United States Senate, losing to incumbent Senator Roger Wicker. Musgrove is a principal at a public affairs consulting firm, Politics. In 2014, he became founding partner of a new law firm in Jackson, Mississippi, Musgrove/Smith Law. As of 2024, he is the most recent Democrat to hold the office of Governor of Mississippi.
Haley Reeves Barbour is an American attorney, politician, and lobbyist who served as the 63rd governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997.
Michael Cameron Moore is an American attorney and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the Attorney General of Mississippi from 1988 to 2004.
Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs is an American former naval aviator and disbarred trial lawyer. He is the brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Scruggs first came to the public eye after successfully suing the asbestos industry on behalf of ill shipyard workers. He later represented the state of Mississippi in the tobacco litigation of the 1990s. He also represented hundreds of homeowners in lawsuits against insurance companies following Hurricane Katrina, and a national class action of patients against HMOs in the early 2000s.
Jonathan Tate Reeves is an American politician serving since 2020 as the 65th governor of Mississippi. A member of the Republican Party, Reeves served as the 32nd lieutenant governor of Mississippi from 2012 to 2020 and as the 53rd Mississippi State Treasurer from 2004 to 2012.
Kerri Rigsby and Cori Rigsby (Moran) are the American sisters who worked for eight years at E.A. Renfroe Company and were managers overseeing catastrophe claims adjusters. Kerri and Cori Rigsby are also the whistleblowers who proved to a Mississippi jury that State Farm committed fraud against the U.S. government. The sisters claim State Farm ignored or minimized wind damage to avoid payments relating to Hurricane Katrina and instead attributed damage to flooding so that the National Flood Insurance Program would cover the claims. The jury verdict was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was then affirmed 8-0 by the United States Supreme Court. The Rigsbys were managers who worked in Gulfport, Mississippi for a subcontractor hired by State Farm to adjust wind and flood claims after Hurricane Katrina. They were the first to uncover a fraudulent scheme by State Farm to improperly categorize wind damage as flood damage. This mischaracterization was very important because State Farm had to pay for wind damage out of its own pocket under State Farm homeowner policies, while flood damage was paid by the federal government under FEMA's flood policies. Over the course of several months, the sisters amassed thousands of pages of documents related to State Farm's activities. The Rigsbys' landmark win was historic because they were the first to prove that an insurance company defrauded the government in FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program despite testimony by FEMA’s Executive Director that, after investigating the allegations, he personally didn’t believe that there was any fraud by State Farm, and he confirmed that FEMA had not asked State Farm to repay any money to the National Flood Insurance Program. However, according to court documents, the sisters took the documents without authorization. Their actions in regard to these documents is the subject of ongoing legal action. Eventually, their story went public when ABC's 20/20 show aired it in August 2006. In 2008, Judge Senter of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi found that the sisters and their attorneys had acted unethically when the Scruggs Katrina Group paid the sisters $150,000 per year each to testify, and barred them from testifying or using any of the documents that were taken. Scruggs was later forced to withdraw as their attorney because he improperly paid them for downloading and giving him the State Farm claims files and other documents to use in his lawsuits against State Farm. Scruggs also was later disbarred after pleading guilty to conspiracy to bribe a state circuit court judge in 2008 and separately, to improperly influence another state court circuit judge. He was sentenced to serve five years and seven years, to run concurrently, on the two guilty pleas.
John Arthur Eaves Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was the unsuccessful Democratic Party nominee in the 2007 general election for Governor of Mississippi.
The 2008 United States Senate special election in Mississippi was held on November 4, 2008. This election was held on the same day of Thad Cochran's re-election bid in the regularly scheduled Class II election. The winner of this special election served the rest of the Senate term, which ended in January 2013. Unlike most Senate elections, this was a non-partisan election in which the candidate who got a majority of the vote won, and if the first-place candidate did not get 50%, a runoff election with the top two candidates would have been held. In the election, no run-off was necessary as Republican nominee and incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Roger Wicker won election to finish the term.
David Wayne Baria is an American politician, attorney, and former contractor. A trial lawyer by trade, Baria was a Democratic member of the Mississippi House of Representatives representing the 122nd district until the end of the 2019 legislative session. He also served as the House Minority Leader. Baria was a member of the Mississippi Senate before he was elected to the retiring J. P. Compretta's seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives. Baria was the Democratic nominee for the 2018 United States Senate election in Mississippi.
The 2015 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 2015, to elect the Governor of Mississippi. Incumbent Republican Governor Phil Bryant ran for re-election to a second and final term in office. This is the highest percentage that a Republican has ever won in a gubernatorial election in Mississippi.
A general election was held in the U.S. state of Mississippi on November 3, 2015. All of Mississippi's executive officers were up for election. Primary elections were held on August 4, 2015, with primary runoffs to be held on August 25, 2015 if no candidate received a majority in the primary. The filing deadline for primary ballot access was February 27.
Christopher B. Epps is a federal inmate and a former commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and career employee in the state criminal justice system though he started his career as a teacher. Appointed as Commissioner in 2002 and serving until 2014, he served under three governors and was the agency's longest-serving commissioner in its history. Epps came up within the department as a 32-year career employee.
James Andrew Gipson is an American attorney and politician who has served as the Mississippi Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner since 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Gipson was appointed to the position by Governor Phil Bryant, succeeding Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to serve in the U.S. Senate. He was elected to a full term in 2019 with 59% of the vote and won reelection in 2023 with 58% of the vote.
Operation Mississippi Hustle was a federal investigation initiated in 2014 by the United States Attorney and prosecuted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. It examined the relationship between officials of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and various for-profit prison contractors and subcontractors, who have provided services to the five private prisons in the state. One, Walnut Grove, closed in September 2016 but has since reopened.
The 2019 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2019, to choose the next Governor of Mississippi. Incumbent Governor Phil Bryant was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits. The Democratic Party nominated incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood, the only Democrat holding statewide office in Mississippi; the Republican Party nominated incumbent Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves. In the general election, Reeves defeated Hood by a margin of 5.08%, with Reeves significantly underperforming Trump who won the state by 17 points, 3 years prior.
A general election was held in the U.S. state of Mississippi on November 5, 2019. All executive offices in the state were up for election. The primary election was held on August 6, 2019, and runoff elections were held on August 27, 2019. Although the Democrats came close to winning the governorship, they ultimately failed to do so. In addition, they lost the sole statewide office they have held since 1878: the Attorney General.
Cecil McCrory is a former Mississippi state legislator, justice court judge, Rankin County school board president and businessman. His indictment was made public in November 2014 for corruption related to his dealings with prison industry contractors. It was later revealed that he had become an informant in the investigation, along with his partner in crime, ex-Commissioner of Corrections in Mississippi, Chris Epps. Epps was sentenced to 235 months and McCrory to 102 months in federal prison. Both men were fined and ordered to pay restitution. McCrory is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, Talladega, Alabama, with a scheduled release date of April 24, 2025.
The 2015 Mississippi Attorney General election was held on November 3, 2015. Incumbent Democrat Jim Hood, who had been the only statewide elected Democrat in Mississippi since 2008, sought and won reelection to a fourth term. As of 2024, this is the last time Democrats won a statewide election in Mississippi.
The 2019 Mississippi Attorney General election was held on November 5, 2019, to elect the Attorney General of Mississippi. Incumbent Jim Hood declined to seek re-election to a fifth term, instead running unsuccessfully for Governor. State Treasurer Lynn Fitch won the Republican nomination in a primary runoff against Andy Taggart, and she defeated Democratic nominee Jennifer Riley Collins in the general election. Fitch became the first Republican to hold the office since 1878, as well as the first woman to ever be elected to the position in state history. It also marked the first time in over a century where no members of the Democratic Party held statewide office.
The 2019 United States attorney general elections were held primarily on November 5, 2019, in 3 states. The previous attorney general elections for this group of states took place in 2015. One state attorney general ran for reelection and won, while Democrat Jim Hood of Mississippi and Andy Beshear of Kentucky did not run for re-election to run for governor.
