NESHOBA COUNTY FAIR — Ty Pinkins, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, pledged at the Neshoba County Fair on Wednesday to work on ways to improve Mississippi’s dire health outcomes, some of the worst in the nation. 

“I’m running to take a common sense voice to Washington, D.C., so that I can work for everyone,” Pinkins said. 

Speaking at the Founders Square pavilion during the first day of political speeches, Pinkins said, if elected, he would seek out ways to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Mississippians and emphatically supported a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. 

“Whether you are a pro-life or a pro-choice woman, I support you to make that pro-life choice for yourself and that pro-choice decision for yourself,” Pinkins said.

Pinkins is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker for the seat he’s held since 2007. Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not speak at the fair this year. 

A campaign spokesperson previously told Mississippi Today that Wicker would be working in Washington during the week of the fair and “doing the job Mississippians have elected him to do.” 

Wicker did visit with several attendees at the fair on Saturday, according to his social media accounts. 

Pinkins also claimed his Republican opponent had forgotten his oath of office to defend the country against enemies “foreign and domestic” and seemed to tie him to the January 6, 2020, insurrection when a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of the presidential election results .

However, Wicker voted to certify the election and rejected false claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the election. Pinkins later clarified to reporters that he was criticizing Wicker’s support of Trump. 

“Many in our legislative branch, they’re not doing their job,” Pinkins said. “Their job is to protect our democracy. What they have done is capitulated to power and put party over country.” 

Before his election to the Senate, Wicker, a Tupelo resident, served several terms in the U.S. House and in the Mississippi Legislature. 

Pinkins, an attorney in Vicksburg, has spent some of the last several years aiding Black farm workers in the Delta who were being paid less money for their work than white visa workers from South Africa doing the same jobs. Pinkins unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state in 2023.

The two will compete in the general election on November 5. Mississippians can begin voting by absentee ballot on September 23, according to the secretary of state’s elections calendar.

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