After John Horhn represented the district for three decades, voters in northwest Jackson and rural parts of Hinds and Madison Counties cast ballots Tuesday for their new state senator.

By 9:20 p.m., with all six Madison County precincts and 18 Hinds County precincts in the district unofficially tallied, Canton municipal judge Kamesha Mumford and attorney Letitia Johnson were in the lead with 39% and 28% of the vote, respectively.

The unofficial results show nearly 9,500 people in the district voted. The final vote tallies can change because local election officials can process absentee and affidavit ballots for up to five days after the election.

If no candidate receives 50% plus one vote after the complete official count, a runoff election will be held Dec. 2 to determine the new lawmaker for Senate District 26.

Physician Coleman Boyd, the race’s conservative candidate, was in third with nearly 16% of the vote after a strong showing in the district’s Madison County precincts.

The race saw seven candidates – including a chemist, retired educator, businesswoman and bishop — most of whom told Mississippi Today during their campaigns that they viewed the district as ripe for economic development but in sore need of infrastructure improvements and better-funded schools. 

READ MORE: Senate District 26 Special Election candidate guide

While Tuesday marked a historic election in Mississippi, voter turnout remained low, the norm for special-called elections in the state.

Federal judges last year determined the Legislature had diluted the state’s Black vote with its 2022 redistricting and ordered 14 special elections. Seven districts across the state saw contested races Tuesday, giving Democrats a unique opportunity to disrupt the Republican party’s two-thirds supermajority.

But the race for the District 26 seat, historically held by a Democrat elected primarily by Jackson voters, was not one of those court-ordered elections. 

In fact, residents in Jackson and some rural parts of Hinds and Madison Counties who voted in the race didn’t have parties to choose from, as the special election was nonpartisan, meaning all candidates appeared on the ballot together. The District 26 race was necessitated when Horhn, who’d held the seat more than 30 years, became mayor of Jackson in July. Two other districts held similar elections to fill vacancies.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents many residents of state Senate District 26 in Washington, endorsed attorney Letitia Johnson for the seat. Horhn did not endorse a candidate or publicly involve himself in the race. 

Privately, the mayor offered advice to some candidates on issues facing the district. Johnson said she spoke with Horhn about administrative challenges that the city of Edwards has experienced in drawing down state funds.

“He talked about how he tried to get it corrected, and he talked me through what he would’ve done to get it corrected,” Johnson told Mississippi Today Monday.

Theresa Kennedy, a small business owner from Ridgeland, said she ran into Horhn at neighborhood association meetings in northwest Jackson shortly after he was elected mayor and that he told her to “keep knocking the doors, keep doing what you’re doing.” 

Many candidates said they had knocked on doors across the district in the lead up to Election Day in an effort to boost voter turnout.

Johnson, wife of NAACP President Derrick Johnson, said she knocked on over 20,000 doors. Mumford said she’d gone out just about every day with a team of canvassers. When she went out to vote at her precinct, arriving at 6:54 a.m., she was the seventh person in line. 

Jermaine Cooley, a chemist who ran for office for the first time, said midday Tuesday he predicted low voter turnout based on his visits to multiple polls throughout the district, but he couldn’t speculate a reason. About half the people Cooley talked to while canvassing knew about the special election, he said, especially due to candidate mailers, but he couldn’t tell if voter awareness translated to the polls. 

“I think that’s a great question that if anyone could really answer that and solve that, they could bottle it and sell it,” he said. 

With a strong showing in Madison County, Boyd, a physician from Bolton known for leading protests outside Jackson’s abortion clinic, was a contender early in the night. He unofficially won the district’s six precincts in Madison County, with nearly 34% of the votes.

“I think we’re going to see a surprising result,” he predicted to Mississippi Today the day before the election.

A white Christian conservative, Boyd said he’d been “blown away” by the response he’s received from people of every racial, economic and political background. Earlier this year, Boyd received a pardon from President Donald Trump after he was convicted of federal civil rights conspiracy for blocking the entrance to a Tennessee abortion clinic.

“God created government for very specific purposes and neither one of the parties are fulfilling that,” he said. “Our population has been trained, if I hear ‘Democrat’ I’m supposed to hate it, if I hear ‘Republicans’ I’m supposed to hate it, but I think people are fed up with that.” 

Each part of the district faces unique problems, from the rural towns like Bolton and Edwards to the suburban neighborhoods in northwest Jackson. 

“In Bolton, it’s lights on rural streets, tree limbs, grass,” Johnson said. “In Edwards, there’s questions about annexation and broadening their tax base and other internal issues the city has going on.”

Residents’ concerns even differ inside one of the largest communities in the district, Presidential Hills. 

“It’s huge,” Johnson said of the Jackson subdivision. “Certain parts are worried about crime. Other parts are worried about the streets, cars parked on the side of the road.”

James Pittman, a retired educator and Mississippi Department of Transportation employee, told Mississippi Today he urged prospective voters to read his campaign literature outlining his experience in state government.

But Pittman said he felt like voters made their choice based on whose yard sign they had seen the most. 

“It’s a mystery to me that a lot of the voters would think that one of them is more qualified,” he said of the other candidates. “The only thing they’ve done is spent more money than me and put up more signs.”