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Midterm elections in November will determine control of both chambers of Congress and how much power President Donald Trump will have to enact his agenda for the final two years of his term.

Republicans control the House and the Senate, but they face an electorate that, according to many polls, has soured on Trump and his party by extension.

In Mississippi, a U.S. Senate race tops the ticket, which includes contested general elections for all four of the state’s U.S. House districts. Recent elections indicate that Mississippi continues to be a deep red state, and most pundits and prognosticators have the state’s midterm federal elections firmly in the “noncompetitive” category. 

Most incumbents are poised to sail to reelection in November, but challengers are putting in the shoe leather, traversing the state and bombarding social media. Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, has raised significant amounts of campaign cash and appears to be mounting a strong challenge to incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde Smith. Ty Pinkins, an independent, is also running.

Ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, Mississippi Today asked voters what issues were top of mind as they prepared Election Day nears. Here is what they said. 

The cost of living

Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, saw his approval rating slump as he struggled to tamp down inflation. A promise to lower prices was a central plank of President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and he rode a wave of voter discontent with the economy among other issues back into the White House.  

But as the midterms approach, the cost of living might lead to a blue wave, with voters lamenting the rising price of groceries, gas and other consumer goods. Many voters blame Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran for exacerbating an “affordability crisis.”

Shirley Miller, 68, a retired Mississippi Department of Mental Health employee from Jackson, said she has to buy less at the grocery store and limit her driving to cope with rising prices at the gas pump.  

“I can’t believe a head of lettuce is $5,” Miller said. “It’s impacted me because things I used to buy, I don’t buy anymore, or I use a cheaper version.”

Miller’s car requires premium gas. Before the Trump-led war in Iran, Miller said she remembers paying $3.29 a gallon. The last time she filled up, about a week before she spoke with Mississippi Today, it cost $4.49.

“I have places I go. I go and come back, and I don’t do a lot of travel between that time frame,” Miller said. “I just get in and do what I got to do and come back.”

Miller said she plans to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot in November. 

But other voters believe rising prices are temporary and pale in importance to winning the war with Iran. 

Mary Sellers, 87, a retired hospital switchboard operator who lives between Hattiesburg and Petal, said she believes Trump is on a divine mission to defeat the Iranian regime.  

“I’m not worried about the price of gas or the price of eggs at the store, because God has other things in mind for us to pray to him about,” Sellers said, “and that’s our faithfulness to Israel and our faithfulness to his word, the Bible.”

Sellers said she is voting for Republicans this November because they better represent her values. 

For Camille Wright, 66, a retired appraiser who lives just outside the Jackson Metro area,  electing a Democratic Congress that would repeal Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” or what she calls the “One Big Ugly Bill,” is a top priority. 

Wright believes the legislation will trigger the closure of multiple rural hospitals and nursing homes. She also fears changes to Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP funding could harm the state’s most vulnerable residents while also leading to higher health care costs for everyone. 

Wright believes these issues are particularly salient in Mississippi, long one of the poorest states with some of the worst health outcomes in the country. But she blames Democrats for failing to translate these realities into political victories, a concern that persists heading into this year’s election.  

“I blame part of this on the state Democratic Party because again and again they fail to stand up to the challenge,” Wright said. “I don’t know why that is, but they’re partly to blame because they have so much ammunition to go after the Republicans with.” 

Political corruption and self-dealing 

Several voters believe Trump’s conduct during his second term should bring about more scrutiny of the way elected officials use their positions to enrich themselves. 

Bo Alawine, 62, a Democrat who works for a defense contractor in Gulfport, said Republicans in Mississippi haven’t pointed out Trump’s multi-billion-dollar self-enrichment, even as they point out fraud in Democratic-led states. 

“The personal enrichment of Donald Trump has increased his bottom line, his personal wealth, at the expense of others during his time in office, which is unheard of in modern times, at least,” Alawine said. “The fact that I don’t see any Republican member of our congressional delegation uttering a single peep of concern about it, I have a problem with that.”

Alawine said he hopes Democrats reclaim a majority in the U.S. House “to exercise oversight and investigations of the administration and hold members of the administration accountable.” 

Bryan Champlin, 48, an audiovisual systems specialist from Brandon, said corruption exists in both parties, though he believes it currently leans more endemic on the right.

“Politicians appear focused on themselves, donors and wealthier interests,” he said. 

Religion and its influence on politics 

For Sellers, Democrats have done little to stop what she said was a growing threat posed by the influence of Islam in the United States and in Mississippi.

“Islam is an enemy, and they are trying to come in and take over,” Sellers said. “I have great-grandchildren that I’ve invested my life in, and I don’t want them to have any influence of this ungodly … it’s not a religion. A religion doesn’t require people to live like they live. Islam is a cult, not a religion, and so we don’t have to give them freedom of religion.”

By contrast, Wright took aim at Mississippi politicians who she said invoke Christianity while pursuing an agenda that she said is at odds with Christian values.

“Mississippians want to say that they’re so Christian. No, they’re really not when it comes to their politics. They are hypocrites,” Wright said. “Mississippians are religious, but they are not Christian in their actions, because if they were, they would never support such a corrupt administration.”

The U.S. Senate Race 

Miller was sharply critical of Hyde-Smith, saying she hasn’t seen visible contributions to the state from the senator and plans to vote for Colom, who is “looking at the hoots and the hollers of Mississippi, the back roads, the interstates, the state highways, and not looking at what our current president thinks is important.”

Sellers said she didn’t know who Hyde-Smith was running against, but felt ads she’s seen attacking Hyde-Smith’s past remarks about rising meat prices have been misleading. Even still, she said Trump’s endorsement alone won’t sway her vote.

“I haven’t seen anything other than that she’s endorsed by President Trump. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to vote for somebody because President Trump endorses them.”

Hyde-Smith is still a likely favorite in ruby red Mississippi. Colom has outraised Hyde-Smith for two fundraising quarters this election season, but a recent report showed Hyde-Smith with $2.54 million cash on hand, and Colom with $847,000.

Mississippi’s federal midterm Election Day is Nov. 3. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

In August, the Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed a case of alleged obstetric violence. Experts say that decision set a precedent that could make litigating similar cases harder and more costly.

The case, Brown v. Dr. Barbara Davey-Sullivan and The Woman’s Clinic of Mississippi PLLC, began after the 2018 birth of Shani Brown’s third child. When she first arrived at the hospital, Brown signed paperwork agreeing to potential surgical interventions, according to her hospital consent form. During labor, her doctor announced she intended to perform an episiotomy, a surgical cut sometimes made during childbirth to widen the vaginal opening. Brown, who had a previous episiotomy, revoked consent, according to records. 

“Please don’t cut me,” Brown told her doctor, according to the legal filing.

The doctor performed the procedure anyway. She did not tell Brown why, according to records. 

In 2019, Brown sued her obstetrician-gynecologist for performing the episiotomy. In legal documents, Brown, now 41, said her healthcare provider performed the procedure “with neither consent nor explanation of any medical necessity.”

Seven years after the case began, the state’s highest court dismissed Brown’s case this summer because it said she failed to produce expert testimony. Legal experts say that decision could affect not only pregnant patients – but anyone who elects to withdraw medical consent in a hospital. 

“Brown gave consent prior to delivery and then withdrew consent during labor,” the decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court stated. “In such cases, it is not enough to establish that consent was revoked. The patient also has to show that stopping the unwanted procedure was medically feasible without causing harm … ” 

A spokesperson with Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jackson, where Brown gave birth in 2018, declined to comment on the case. Stephen Kruger, the defense attorney who represented both Dr. Barbara Davey-Sullivan and The Woman’s Clinic, where Davey-Sullivan works, told Mississippi Today that “as the Supreme Court pointed out, the plaintiffs could not produce a medical expert to say that it would have been reasonable to stop” the episiotomy when Brown revoked consent as the baby’s head was crowning.

Kruger told Mississippi Today he credited Dr. Sullivan’s judgment with the delivery of “a completely normal baby.”

“If she had not done the episiotomy and there had been complications, where do you think we would be?” he said.

In the U.S., 1 in 5 women report mistreatment during maternity care, according to a 2023 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the most common types of mistreatment women in the survey reported was “being made to accept unwanted treatment.”

Now, if Mississippians want to sue their physician for not respecting withdrawn medical consent during a procedure, they will need to do so under claims of medical malpractice, not battery, said Mary Ziegler, a professor and reproductive health expert at the University of California, Davis, School of Law.

“And therefore you need expert testimony, which is going to only really be available to people who either have the money … or someone whose injuries are grievous enough that it’s worth it for the attorney to shell out a bunch of money on the front end hiring expert witnesses,” Ziegler said. 

Medical consent cases that won’t be affected by this ruling are the rare ones where no consent was given, explained Ziegler. An example, she said, would be if a patient went to the hospital for a knee surgery and doctors took out an appendix. But the vast majority of cases are murkier than that, Ziegler said.

In Brown’s case, the Mississippi Supreme Court found that Brown withdrew consent during the procedure because the court defined the birth – not the episiotomy – as the procedure. Ziegler said this distinction will be confusing for patients in situations that require several interventions.

“What if you don’t consent to one of those things?” she said. “Which of them is the procedure? Is all of them the procedure? I think there’s ambiguity about how you define that.”

The cases that make it to court

The new requirement of expert testimony could stretch far beyond obstetric patients. But those suffering obstetric violence may fare the worst, Ziegler said, with fewer attorneys willing to take on those cases because they tend to result in lower compensation. 

Attorneys decide which cases are worth their time based on expected payouts, Ziegler said. Those payouts are calculated from medical bills, lost wages and diminished quality of life. In obstetric violence cases, patients aren’t necessarily harmed in a “classic, easy-to-value way,” she said. Those cases are usually about autonomy, Ziegler said, where the injury is “that you didn’t get to decide what happened to you.”

Fewer lawsuits could mean less incentive for doctors to respect patient autonomy, Ziegler said. 

Already, these cases are quite rare because of the costs, time commitment and difficulty of litigation. It’s not surprising Mississippi is only dealing with the issue now, explained Daniel Waide, a Hattiesburg-based attorney who represented Brown from 2022 until the case was dismissed. 

While it’s not clear how many states have litigated cases like Brown’s, Waide said he’s aware of a growing body of legal precedent. He highlighted a few examples, including a 2020 case that established a precedent for withdrawn medical consent in Massachusetts, a 2012 case that did so in Connecticut, a 2008 case in Nebraska and a 2000 case in Kentucky. Those cases weren’t specifically about obstetrics. 

“Every state just addresses it as it comes up,” Waide said.

The standard of care

Brown now lives with her husband and their three children on Alabama’s coast. Since she gave birth in 2018, she said she faces lasting trauma, nerve damage that requires medication and pain during intercourse and while using the bathroom. In 2022, she underwent reconstructive surgery to repair a weakened vaginal wall. 

“You have to have a medical expert identify that damage and then to say that that damage was caused by a wrongful act by Dr. Sullivan,” said Kruger, the defense attorney representing the physician and clinic. He added that Brown did not produce an expert witness. 

Brown’s court case is over, but she hopes by speaking out she can prevent other women from enduring similar anguish.

“My goal at this point is I desperately want people to know that that can happen,” Brown said. “I desperately want people to read their consent forms.”

If she had known her verbal withdrawal of consent would have been ignored, Brown said she never would have signed the hospital paperwork. She would have gone elsewhere, she said. It’s not clear whether her situation would have turned out differently at another Mississippi hospital. 

Brown said she remembers being in a state of shock and emotional distress after the birth of her third baby in 2018. It distracted her from feeling the physical pain of the episiotomy until hours after the birth. Her delivery room was filled with medical students, which she said she also didn’t consent to, worsening her trauma.

“I remember when (my daughter) was placed in my arms feeling just deep sadness, knowing what my body had just went through and what just happened to me,” Brown said. 

A year after the birth, Brown started a regimen of anxiety and depression medications to cope with her postpartum trauma. In Mississippi, maternal mental health disorders are a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health. Pregnancy-related deaths are those occurring during or within one year after the end of pregnancy. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court sided with Brown’s doctor. Still, birth justice advocates say violations of consent and obstetric violence happen too often in the U.S. and go unchallenged.

The gravity of violations to consent during childbirth is sometimes lost when filtered through the norms of medical care, said Jacqueline Hammack, a birth justice advocate who represented Brown between 2019 and 2021 before leaving the case for family obligations. While U.S. births primarily take place in hospitals and sometimes involve medical intervention, Hammack said, they are normal physiological events – not inherently medical. 

Most people in the U.S. perceive childbirth as purely medical, but that’s “historical happenstance,” said Hammack, adding that other countries have midwifery-centered models of care where providers treat patients more like partners. In the Netherlands, she said, midwives serve as the backbone of the perinatal care system, with obstetricians attending more complex births as necessary. That system has worked well for the Dutch: Maternal mortality in the Netherlands is more than four times lower than in the U.S. Mississippi has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the U.S.

The Mississippi Supreme Court classified Brown’s case as medical negligence. In doing so, Hammack said, it could set up other cases for failure. That’s because expert witnesses would be required to show that the physician in question deviated from the standard of care. The defendant in a case of alleged obstetric violence often hasn’t broken with the standard of care, according to Hammack.

“The sad fact is, obstetric violence occurs with such frequency … And what constitutes the standard of care is what the majority is doing,” Hammack said. 

Good solutions, according to Hammack, would involve hospitals adopting policies requiring ongoing consent for significant interventions, as well as making clear to patients that consent can be withdrawn. 

But meaningful change would go beyond consent policies, Hammack said, ensuring women can access midwives, doulas and other birth advocates. She also said educating lawyers and advocates to recognize violations is important. 

“The larger goal is a system in which clinical expertise and patient autonomy aren’t treated as competing values,” Hammack said. “Providers bring clinical expertise, (but) the person giving birth retains decisional authority over their body.”

Brown hopes that by the time her children are grown, things will be different. 

“I have two daughters and I just feel like something needs to change,” Brown said.

OXFORD — LSU knew better than any other team in America what it was facing in Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. In this case, familiarity breeds not contempt but respect. Familiarity did not help the Tigers one single bit. The outcome of one of the most anticipated games in Mississippi history was on the line, and Chambliss stepped up and won it.

That’s all he did. He won the game. Chambliss was, as he so often is, magical in the Rebels’ hard-earned 32-24 victory amid one of the most intense atmospheres imaginable. This game was dripping emotion from both teams and more than 70,000 fans.

READ MORE: Shakespeare could have written this LSU-Ole Miss football plot

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Chambliss’s numbers, impressive as they were, tell only part of the story, but let’s get that part out of the way. He did it with his right arm, completing 33 of 48 passes for 363 yards and two touchdowns. He did it with his legs, often racing away from a fierce LSU pass rush to throw perfect darts, and then scoring the winning touchdown on a 14-yard scamper with five minutes, seven seconds remaining.

When Ole Miss needed him most, Chambliss delivered. As Pete Golding said of Chambliss afterward, “He’s just such a fierce competitor. That’s why our guys believe in him.”

Lane Kiffin, Chambliss’s coach until Kiffin quit Ole Miss on the verge of the NCAA playoffs last year, called Chambliss “the most dynamic player in college football. … You scheme him up and you make good (defensive) calls, and he just makes plays. That’s why he is who he is.”

“Houdini plays,” Kiffin called them.

If you watched the game you know Chambliss didn’t do it by himself. The Ole Miss defense, especially in the first half, pursued with uncommon speed and aggressiveness. Rebel receivers made big plays, too, especially heretofore little-used slot receiver Traylon Ray.

“Traylon, who?” you might ask, as I did, when Ray kept making big catch after big catch.

Traylon Ray, who transferred to Ole Miss from West Virginia last year, couldn’t get on the field as a wide receiver and was switched to cornerback because the Ole Miss really needed help at that position. That didn’t work out, either, but he returned to Ole Miss for his junior season when promised a chance to again play wide receiver. He didn’t catch a single pass last year. He caught four for 54 yards in the Rebels’ first two games this year.

And then came Saturday night when the Tallahassee native was targeted eight times and caught seven passes for 115 yards and one touchdown. Chambliss says Rebel fans should get used to it. “He’s great guy and a great player,” Chambliss said of Ray. “He made some really big plays tonight.”

The respect is mutual. “Trinidad has a lot of trust in me and I have a lot of trust in him,” Ray said. “Trinidad’s a gamer.”

Ole Miss needed players to step up because running back Kewan Lacy, the Rebels’ other superstar, missed the second half with a banged up shoulder after running nine times for 43 tough yards and a touchdown in the first half. JT Lindsey, a transfer from LSU, played well in relief of Lacy, running four times for 20 yards and a couple key first downs.

But let’s get back to Chambliss, who really might be the most entertaining player in the country and is currently in the first sentence of any way-too-early conversation about the 2026 Heisman Trophy. 

Let’s look at the four Ole Miss touchdown drives. On the first, which gave the Rebels a 10-0 first quarter lead, Chambliss completed all four of his passes for 70 yards, setting up Lacy’s five-yard touchdown lead. On the second Rebel TD drive, which put the Rebels up 17-0, he completed four of six passes for 37 yards, including a 21-yard TD strike to Ray.

On the third, after LSU had scored, Chambliss responded by hitting six of eight throws for 75 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown throw to Deuce Alexander for a 24-7 Ole Miss lead late in the first half. By that time, most of the 70,033 fans were dancing in the aisles. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has rarely, if ever, been so loud.

LSU stopped all that dancing in the second half when the Tigers reeled off 17 straight points to draw even at 24. Momentum had done an about-face. After running only 14 times for 55 yards in the first half, the Tigers went physical and started pushing the Rebels around for 117 rushing yards in the second half, much of it right at the heart of the Ole Miss defense.

So that made the score 24-all and set the stage for the climax of Saturday night’s Trinidad Show. Chambliss drove the Rebels 75 yards in 12 plays, personally accounting for all the yardage. He completed six of eight passes for 62 yards, and then scored the winning touchdown with one of those “Houdini” plays. He faked a handoff to Lindsey and kept the ball around left end for a 14 yards and a touchdown. All but one Tiger bit on the fake, and Chambliss simply out-ran him. This storied old concrete stadium might or might not have shaken at that precise moment.

And then Ole Miss pulled one over on LSU, lining up for a two-point conversion. Just when some of us thought the Rebels coaches had gone mad, Chambliss fooled LSU with a hard count and the Tigers jumped offsides. So Ole Miss lined up, looking as if they would go for two again from the one-yard line. And guess what, LSU jumped again. So now, needing only 18 inches, Chambliss really did take the snap and hand the ball to Lindsey for an easy two points.

“We practiced that all week,” Golding said. “With an eight-point lead (and just five minutes left), we knew we couldn’t lose.”

It did get hairy. LSU, as talented as you would expect with a reported $50 million roster payroll, drove to the Ole Miss six. On fourth and goal from there, Kam Franklin batted Sam Leavitt’s pass high into the air and Jaylon Braxton snatched it to seal the deal and set off a lengthy on-field victory celebration.

“Congrats to those guys; they deserved to win,” Kiffin would say post-game.

“I’m just so happy for our guys,” Golding said before trying to set the tone for what comes next for Ole Miss.

“This wasn’t the Super Bowl,” Golding said. “Am I super proud of them? Yes. But this wasn’t our goal. We’ve got a really tough game next week against a really talented Florida team, We’ll celebrate tonight and then get back to work.”

Not to worry, said Traylon Ray, the Rebels’ newest football hero, “Tonight, we celebrate,” Ray said. “Tomorrow when I wake up, it’s back to work.”

The future of the Ole Miss team is filled with wonderful possibilities. That said, for all who bleed Red and Blue, the immediate past will be treasured no matter what comes next.

Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson’s recent reminder that there will be no possibility of runoff elections in Mississippi’s upcoming U.S. Senate and House races conjures up memories from the historic 2020 legislative session.

The 2020 session of the Mississippi Legislature will be remembered for removing some long lingering links to the state’s racist past, and for that, lawmakers should be commended.

The Legislature, most notably, removed the old state flag that displayed the Confederate battle symbol prominently in its design.

Replacing the flag was not the only action taken by the 2020 Legislature to deal with vestiges of the state’s racial sins.

They also removed a Jim Crow provision of  the 1890 state constitution designed to make it more difficult for Black Mississippians to be elected to statewide office.

At the strong insistence of U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi, the 2020 Legislature put on the ballot a proposal to amend the state constitution to remove a provision saying that if no candidate for statewide offices (not federal posts) garnered a majority of the vote and the most votes in a majority of the 122 House districts, the House would select the winner from the top two vote-getters. The provision, it was clear from the narrative of the day, was put in the 1890 constitution to prevent Black people, who at the time constituted a majority of the state’s population, from winning the office of governor or any of the other Mississippi statewide posts.

Surprisingly, Vermont is now the only state that still has a provision throwing statewide elections to its Legislature if no candidate obtains a majority of the vote.

While Mississippi legislators removed some of those bygone connections to racism and the state’s Jim Crow laws during that historic session, they embraced another – runoff elections. They replaced the House electoral process for statewide officeholders with a runoff.

It should be noted that the Legislature opted to place on the ballot for voters to decide a proposal to adopt the runoff in place of the electoral process. Legislators could have just as easily not included the runoff provision in the proposal or at least have allowed voters to decide whether to have a runoff or do like the vast majority of states and recognize the person with the most votes – a majority or not – as the winner of the election.

 By adopting the runoff, Mississippi joined Georgia as the only other state that mandated a runoff if no statewide candidate garnered a majority in a general election. The Georgia provision applies to both federal and state offices while in Mississippi, as Watson pointed out, the runoff occurs only for state offices.

So, in the Nov. 3 U.S. Senate election in Mississippi, the candidate – Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Democrat Scott Colom or independent Ty Pinkins – who captures the most votes, majority or not, will win the post.

Interestingly, Georgia imposed its runoff in the 1960s when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s electoral provision that was remarkably similar to Mississippi’s that was removed in 2020.

According to published reports, Denmark Grover, the then-Georgia legislator who played a key role in creating the runoff, did not try to hide his intent.

“If you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced, I was,” he said years later. “If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated, it was.”

Louisiana also has a runoff election, but the circumstances are different since the state does not have traditional party primaries. Instead, candidates from all parties are on the same ballot and the top two vote-getters, if no one obtains a majority,  advance to a runoff.

A handful of states, mostly those from the South where Jim Crow ruled for decades, have runoffs for party primary elections if no candidate obtains a majority.

But only Georgia and Mississippi go that step further to require runoffs in the general election.

As Georgia trends blue or toward the Democratic Party, it will be interesting to see if there are efforts to remove the runoff there.

And if that happens, Mississippi will be the only state with a general election runoff and it is not a remnant of the state’s racial past. It was adopted in the 2020s. 

OXFORD — Lane Kiffin’s new team at LSU couldn’t deny Trinidad Chambliss — the quarterback Kiffin helped transform into a star after recruiting him from a Division II program to Mississippi last year.

Chambliss passed for 363 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a tiebreaking score in the fourth quarter, and No. 8 Ole Miss delighted a crowd that was already revved up about Kiffin’s return, beating the seventh-ranked Tigers 32-24 on Saturday night.

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LSU stormed back from a 24-7 halftime deficit to tie the game before Chambliss engineered a 75-yard touchdown drive without the services of top running back Kewan Lacy, who left the game with an injured left shoulder.

Chambliss faked a handoff and ran 14 yards against the grain, outracing LSU safety Ty Benefield to the left pylon, and Ole Miss (3-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) added a 2-point conversion to take an eight-point lead with 6:14 to go.

Ole Miss drew LSU offside twice while lining up for the conversion before converting it from a half-yard out on a direct snap to JT Lindsey.

LSU answered by driving 69 yards to the Ole Miss 6 before Sam Leavitt missed open tight end Zach Grace along the goal line with a third-down pass, and then had his fourth-down pass deflect off the helmet of defensive end Kam Franklin. Jaylon Braxton intercepted the ball in the end zone to seal it as Kiffin virtually collapsed to his knees.

Leavitt passed for 153 yards and a touchdown and ran for 63 yards and a score for LSU (2-1, 0-1).

The Tigers’ comeback bid began in earnest with pressure by Benefield, whose blitz forced Chambliss into a rushed throw that was intercepted by Ja’Keem Jackson and returned 10 yards to the Rebels 33.

Leavitt took it from there, gaining 10 yards on a scramble up the middle that ended with the QB being flipped upside down by multiple tacklers before crashing down hard on the 4-yard line. Leavitt responded to the big hit with a tackle-slipping scoring run on the next play to make it 24-14.

After Lucas Caneiro missed a 53-yard field goal attempt wide right, LSU pulled within 24-21 on Leavitt’s 26-yard pass to Ole Miss transfer Winston Watkins Jr., who made a leaping, twisting catch near the right corner of the end zone and touched one foot down.

LSU was driving to potentially take the lead when star tight end Trey’Dez Green injured his right knee on a first-down catch in Ole Miss territory. The Tigers wound up tying it with a field goal before Ole Miss drove for the decisive score.

Ole Miss has defeated LSU in consecutive seasons, with Chambliss starring in both games — the first with Kiffin as his coach.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who was instrumental in an LSU athletic department shake-up last fall that precipitated Kiffin’s hiring, smiled widely as he posed for a picture with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on the field during pregame warmups.

But they couldn’t have been happy about how the game began.

Chambliss sparked Ole Miss to a 17-0 lead, highlighted by Lacy’s 5-yard power run through the middle of the line and Chambliss’ 21-yard pass to Traylon Ray.

Ray, who finished with seven catches for 115 yards, was instrumental on the first touchdown drive, outleaping two defenders for a 36-yard catch along the right sideline.

LSU trimmed the Rebels’ lead to 17-7 on Dilin Jones’ 2-yard run with 1:57 left in the half — enough time for Chambliss to direct another scoring drive.

After eluding the LSU pass rush, Chambliss rifled a 20 yard pass to Deuce Alexander in the middle of the end zone to make it 24-7 just 7 seconds before halftime, and Ole Miss fans stood and roared in approval as the Rebels trotted to the locker room.

The takeaway

LSU: The Tigers will be disappointed by their slow start but encouraged by a strong second half that took a tough road game down to the wire in Kiffin’s third game in charge. But Green’s injury could loom large. The Tigers also lost linebacker-safety Dashawn Spears to a lower left leg injury in the first half.

Ole Miss: Chambliss’ calm under pressure and dynamic play made the difference, especially after Lacy had to leave the game in the third quarter. The Rebels will have to hope Lacy’s injury doesn’t keep him out for too long.

Up next

LSU: Hosts current No. 9 Texas A&M next Saturday.

Mississippi: Visits Florida next Saturday.

OXFORD — A sea of red and blue tents filled the Grove at the University of Mississippi as tens of thousands of people converged on campus Saturday for the long-anticipated Top 10 game between LSU and Ole Miss.

The longstanding rivalry became a grudge match after Lane Kiffin ditched his job as the Ole Miss head coach before the end of the 2025 season for a bigger paycheck in Baton Rouge. Ole Miss fans toted hand-lettered signs that mocked Kiffin, calling him a traitor and worse.

ESPN broadcast its “College GameDay” from the Grove, and Ole Miss student James Whitehead won $1 million by kicking a field goal on air.

Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman — a Mississippi native and resident, and frequent front-row fan at Ole Miss basketball games — served as the celebrity guest picker for the weekend’s college football games, wearing an Ole Miss baseball hat and choosing the Rebels to win.

“If I go for what’s his name,” Freeman said, as the ESPN hosts said Lane Kiffin, “I will not be able to go home tonight.”

READ MORE: Shakespeare could have written this LSU-Ole Miss football plot

The vibe varied widely on campus. Some families and friends who have opposing allegiances shared food and drinks at tailgate parties.

“I’m not going to show up and not wear purple and gold,” Brock McGoogan said, sporting the Tigers’ colors as he stood with his girlfriend, Summer Huerkamp, who is an Ole Miss fan

In other areas, Ole Miss and LSU fans shouted at each other — some of them, after getting their fill of chicken fingers, potato salad and beer or bourbon.

As kickoff drew closer and the Mississippi heat beat down even harder, the crowd was elbow-to-elbow and many partiers grew rowdier.

Ole Miss fans erupted in cheers as their team walked through the Grove on the way to Vaught Hemingway stadium. The Rebels were led by two star players who declined to transfer to LSU with Kiffin and are now being being promoted by Ole Miss as Heisman candidates — quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy.

PASS CHRISTIAN — Mississippi’s oyster reefs are showing signs of growth ahead of the 2026-27 season, but for fishermen like James Miller, rebuilding the industry also means finding enough buyers to make getting on the water worthwhile. 

“We’ve just got to get our market moving again,” Miller said. “It’s going to happen. It will take time.” 

At a Sept. 8 stakeholder meeting in Pass Christian, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources estimated there are just under 400,000 sacks of oysters across surveyed reefs in the Mississippi Sound, up from about 275,000 last year. 

The growth follows a roughly 50,000-sack harvest during the 2025-26 season, which MDMR said was the largest harvest in more than a decade. 

Joe Spraggins, executive director of MDMR, said Mississippi is moving in the right direction. 

“We’ve got big oysters. That’s what started last year, right? That’s all that’s in Mississippi,” Spraggins said. “We can get that reputation back by bringing in 100,000 sacks of market-sized oysters.” 

Reef health

Mississippi’s oyster industry is still rebuilding from the effects of the 2019 Bonnet Carré Spillway openings, which sent large amounts of freshwater into the Mississippi Sound and caused salinity levels to fall. 

MDMR estimated oyster mortality across major reefs in the western Mississippi Sound at nearly 97% following the openings. 

Since then, the department has used reef monitoring, cult placement and other restoration efforts to rebuild oyster populations. 

Jason Rider, director of MDMR’s Shellfish Bureau, pointed fishermen toward Henderson Point and St. Joe, where population estimates increased and harvest pressure was relatively low last season. 

“We’re seeing the growth across nearly every size class with the spats. That’s picking up significantly,” Rider said. “That’s really encouraging for us. That’s a really good, strong sign of growth.” 

Other reefs did not see the same gains. 

According to MDMR, the density of market-size oysters at Pass Christian Dredging declined from 19 oysters per square meter, or per 10.76 square feet, in 2025 to 8.2 in 2026. At Pass Christian Dredging, density dropped from 2.7 to 1.2 oysters per square meter. 

MDMR officials said Pass Christian Tonging, Pass Christian Dredging and Pass Marianne were among the areas affected by heavy rainfall and lower salinity this summer. 

Rider said the department will continue monitoring the reefs and investing in restoration efforts. 

This summer, MDMR placed limestone and shell, known as cultch, across 236 acres of oyster habitat. Much of that work was concentrated on reefs affected by the heavy rainfall.

Managing the harvest

MDMR plans to maintain a 30% harvest quota for individual reef areas this season. Because the quota is based on oyster population estimates, the number of sacks available for harvest can increase or decrease as populations change. 

During the 2025-26 season, harvest exceeded the 30% quota in several areas. MDMR reported harvests of roughly 41% at Pass Christian Tonging, 37% at Pass Christian Dredging and 34% at Pass Marianne. Henderson Point and St. Joe were much lower, at about 8% and 1%, respectively. 

Miller said he believes individual reefs should be closed once they reach the 30% quota to prevent too much harvesting in one area. 

“They keep the reef sometimes open too long in areas,” Miller said. “Once they meet their quota, they need to shut it down.” 

The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center has reached out to Rider for more information about why harvest exceeded the 30% quota in some areas last season and how MDMR plans to manage the quota this season. Rider has not yet responded. 

MDMR also plans to maintain last season’s daily commercial limits of 15 sacks per tonging vessel and 20 sacks per dredging vessel. Those daily limits are separate from the 30% seasonal harvest quota. 

Miller supports keeping the daily limits in place. He said allowing fishermen to bring in more oysters would do little good if there are not enough buyers. 

“If you can’t sell them, why bring them in?” Miller said. 

Rebuilding the market

The 2026-27 oyster season is scheduled to open Oct. 1, nearly two weeks earlier than last year’s Oct. 13 opening. 

Miller, a lifelong fisherman from D’Iberville, supports the earlier opening because he said lower rainfall in the fall can give fishermen more opportunities to harvest before river conditions lead to reef closures. 

He said the commercial market remains another challenge after years of limited Mississippi harvests. 

“When you’re off for five years, your market is slowly progressing, coming back,” Miller said. 

He said oysters from other Gulf states, including Louisiana and Texas, have filled some of the demand that Mississippi fishermen previously served. 

“We’ve got a kind of show that we do have a good oyster for them to buy, and we can boost our market back up,” Miller said. “It’s going to take time.” 

Operating costs are another concern. 

Miller said fuel costs have cut into his income from fishing and shrimping. He estimated he has recently spent $3,500 to $4,000 a week on fuel while working on the water. 

Still, Miller said he believes keeping harvest limits in place while Mississippi rebuilds both its oyster populations and commercial market is the best approach. 

“We had a good thing last year,” Miller said. “It’ll be a good thing this year.” 

Ole Miss fans nursing bloody marys in the Grove before Saturday’s LSU game may notice something unusual overhead: a plane towing a “Cindy High-Prices” banner.

The nickname is one Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom has used for his Republican opponent, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

The plane is expected to fly over the Ole Miss campus starting at 10 a.m., then over Vaught-Hemingway Stadium from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. as more than 68,000 fans arrive for the 6:30 p.m. kickoff, according to a news release from public relations firm Downfield Strategies.

It’s unclear who’s behind it, though it’s a third-party, likely a political action committee. A Colom campaign spokesperson said the campaign is not responsible.

Nathan Calvert, communications director for the Hyde-Smith campaign, said the group behind the airplane is wasting their money just like Colom will “waste our tax dollars if he wins.”

An incumbent Republican who’s a former sheriff, a Democratic retired senior non-commissioned officer and an independent businessman and perennial candidate are vying to represent southern Mississippi in Congress for the next two years. 

State Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III of Gulfport is the Democratic challenger trying to oust incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Ezell, despite the Gulf Coast congressional district having remained solidly conservative for nearly two decades. Independent Carl Boyanton of Diamondhead is making his fourth run for the seat.

Hulum told Mississippi Today during an episode of “The Other Side” podcast that he decided to run because the area needs a unifying figure to combat divisiveness, support K-12 public education and support veterans.  

“We’re too divided as a country,” Hulum said. “We’re too divided as a community. But we need a unifier. Someone who’s going to bring people together, be more neighborly and look out for the well-being of one another.” 

If elected, Hulum said he would consult constituents on major policy issues, instead of blindly supporting a political party or political figure.

“We have to put the will of South Mississippi before anyone’s political agenda or aspirations,” Hulum said.

Hulum is attempting to become the first Democrat to win the southern district since 2008. He currently represents Gulfport in the Mississippi House of Representatives, and he served in the U.S. Army for 22 years, retiring as a sergeant major. If elected, Hulum would be the first Black person to represent the 4th Congressional District. 

Hulum hopes that President Donald Trump’s unpopular decision to escalate the military conflict in Iran and enact additional tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the United States will cause South Mississippians to rethink their voting for the GOP. 

A native of Pascagoula, Ezell defeated former Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo in 2022. Before entering Congress, Ezell was the Jackson County sheriff. He serves on the Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. 

Ezell told Mississippi Today in an interview that he wants to run for reelection to steer more federal resources to southern Mississippi infrastructure projects and build on recent funding increases in the U.S. Coast Guard, which he believes has been chronically underfunded in recent years.

If reelected, he wants to introduce legislation that rolls back unnecessary federal regulations at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make it easier for state and local governments to receive relief after natural disasters damage Mississippi communities. 

The Republican incumbent over the next two years also wants to rework some of FEMA’s flood maps because homes located within the flood zone have higher home insurance costs. 

“Insurance is just over-the-top expensive,” Ezell said.  

Ezell said that some of the president’s decisions on tariffs and the military conflict in Iran may be unpopular nationally. But he defended the military action as necessary to prevent Iran from having access to a nuclear weapon, and he said Trump’s tariffs are needed to correct trade imbalances between America and other countries.  

“Americans have been ripped off by European nations and Canada because of the way they do business,” Ezell said. “It’s time to get some payback.”

Boyanton has vowed to fight inflation and lower the cost of living by reining in government spending and the national debt. He vows to combat fraud, waste and abuse, which he said is widespread in government. He has also been a proponent of term limits for Congress.

The midterm elections are Nov. 3.