Robert Schuler Smith, the district attorney of Hinds County, Mississippi, told the Clarion Ledger that he would run in Mississippi’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. He was first elected as Hinds County district attorney in 2008. State Attorney General Jim Hood is also running in the Democratic primary. The filing deadline to run is Friday, March 1, and the primary will be held August 6.

 

Hood, who was first elected attorney general in 2003, is the only statewide Democratic officeholder in Mississippi. Hood first announced he would run for governor in October 2018, and he had more than $1 million in cash on hand as of January 1, 2019.

 

A late January poll from Mason-Dixon (the only public poll of the race thus far) showed Hood with 44 percent of the vote and Republican Tate Reeves with 42 percent in a hypothetical match-up. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

 

Reeves is facing former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. and state Rep. Robert Foster in the Republican primary.