As always, turnout will determine District 32 Election

Dominance in their home counties pushed Noxubee County’s Rod Hickman and Lauderdale County’s Minh Duong into the Nov. 23 run-off elec­tion for the District 32 seat in the Mississippi State Senate.

To come out as the win­ner each candidate’s goal is the same — get their vote back out and to try and sway voters who sup­ported another candidate in the Nov. 2 special elec­tion. Neither task will be easy.

With nine candidates on the ballot on Nov. 2, a large majority of those who turned out to vote likely had a particular person that drew them to the polls. With their candidate gone, Hickman and Duong are left to find ways to draw them into their respec­tive camps.

However, there is also another very important segment of vot­ers who could sway the vote. With around 25 percent of reg­istered voters taking part in the special election, that leaves 75 percent who stayed home. They are still eligible to vote in the run-off if they can be encour­aged to take part.

Hickman will need to hold on to his commanding lead in Nox­ubee, while Duong will need to draw even more support from Lauderdale County. While it is important for the candidates to focus on their local constituen­cies, to ignore Kemper and Winston counties would be a grave mistake.

Hickman garnered 1,677 votes district-wide for 24 per­cent, while Duong picked up 1,611 for 23 percent of the vote.

It should be noted that there were 1,692 votes cast in Kem­per County on Nov. 2 for some­one other than Hickman or Duong. That’s a lot of available votes. The question is, will they stay home on Nov. 23?

There were another 584 votes cast in Winston County for someone other than the two leaders. That is a total of 2,276 voters from a pair of counties who do not have a “favorite son” in the run-off.

Duong carried Lauderdale County with 1,097 votes, while Hickman finished third with 457. Former

Meridian alderwoman and mayoral candidate Kim Houston was second with 599, while Keith Jackson was a distant fourth with 207.

Hickman took Noxubee County in a landslide, picking up 630 of the 844 votes cast. Stan Copeland of Preston was second with 76, while Duong was fifth with 28.

Hickman also won Winston County, although it was narrow. He had 300 votes to 271 for Duong and 264 for Jackson. The only other candidate with more than 100 was Houston with 150.

Hickman’s 457 votes in Kem­per County put him in second behind Copeland’s 544. Jack­son was third with 427. Duong was fifth with 215.

A realistic voter turnout for the run-off would likely be in the 4,600 range, although it could dip to as low as 4,000. It would take a mighty push by both remaining candidates to get it to 5,000.

So the key is this, get your voters out and somehow con­vince those who are currently disinterested to become inter­ested in your campaign. That’s a tall hill to climb, but one that must be scaled by at least one of the candidates.