JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi is trying to extend his 30-year career on Capitol Hill as he faces Democrat Ty Pinkins, a challenger who has received little financial support from his own party in a heavily Republican state.
Wicker, now 73, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 from a northern Mississippi district and was appointed to the Senate by then-Gov. in 2007. Haley Barbour after Republican Trent Lott resigned.
Wicker is an attorney who served in the Mississippi State Senate before moving to Washington. He is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and has pushed for expanding shipbuilding for the military. He was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Pinkins, 50, is an attorney and ran for Mississippi secretary of state in 2023. He said he wants to fight poverty and improve access to health care.
Pinkins and Wicker expressed sharp disagreements over abortion rights. Wicker has praised the Supreme Court for overturning the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion access nationwide, while Pinkins criticized the court’s 2022 decision.
“As the Biden administration continues to pursue its pro-abortion agenda, pro-life advocates will continue to do what we have always done: work through our legislative and legal systems to advance a culture of life,” Wicker said.
Pinkins said that because it is “biologically impossible” to get pregnant, “I am not qualified to tell a woman what to do with her body.”
“That’s between her, her God and her doctor — and if she wants, she’ll allow me or a man to be part of that decision-making process,” Pinkins said. choice woman, I support you – to make that pro-life choice for yourself and that pro-choice decision for yourself.
Mississippi’s last Democrat in the U.S. Senate was John C. Stennis, whose last term ended in January 1989.
Republicans control all of Mississippi’s state offices, three of the four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and a majority of the state’s legislative seats.
