John Corley and Greg Holcomb are vying for the vacant seat in Mississippi Legislative District 106 in a runoff election scheduled for Nov. 29.
According to final election results from Pearl River and Lamar counties, the Secretary of State’s office announced the top two candidates last week.
The results showed a variation of voters in each of the two counties, reflecting that there were about 6,000 more voters in Pearl River County than in Lamar County during the election held earlier this month.
District 106 includes a larger area in Pearl River County, stretching from Lumberton westward to the county and state line. The district also covers parts of western Carriere and northern Picayune.
In Pearl River County, John Corley received over 2,000 votes, giving him a 30 percent lead. Larry Davis and Greg Holcomb both hold 22 percent of the vote.
However, the majority of Lamar County residents voted for their former county supervisor and former mayor of Lumberton, Ben Winston.
Holcomb received the second highest amount of votes in Lamar County, securing his place in the runoff election.
Daniel Wise also received over 14 percent of the votes in Pearl River County.
“There’s a great group of people that ran for this, and I’m honored to be in the runoff,” Corley said.
“It means a lot, we had some pretty stiff competition,” Holcomb said. “All of these guys had some good qualities, and a lot of people came out and voted for us.”
Both candidates have expressed conservative values during campaign events throughout the election season.
Corley said he decided to run for the seat because of his background in education and production industries.
“Education needs to be more locally directed by local school boards,” he said.
For many small manufacturing businesses, “it takes 99.5 cents to make one dollar,” due to heavy regulations, Corley said. “There’s a lot of effort put into that and I think our state government needs to really work at encouraging those businesses to stay here and stay productive.”
Holcomb said his background as an attorney and his lifelong interest in the political world pushed him to run for a legislative seat.
“I represent people for a living already,” Holcomb said. “Being able to read, write and interpret legislation is a big asset.”
Both candidates said whomever is elected would need to maintain an open line of communication with county and city governments.
“We need to be careful about passing things down to our county supervisors,” Corley said, referring to recent property tax increases in Pearl River County due to a change in assessment values mandated by the state.
“I think whoever gets this, we need to go to our local boards, county and city, and tell them I’m here, I’m at your service, here to represent you,” Holcomb said. “The legislature deals a lot with our policies which impact us every day.”
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Nov. 29 for the runoff election. Only District 106 eligible voting residents can cast a ballot. Absentee ballots can also be cast at the Pearl River County Circuit Clerk’s office.
Even if residents did not vote for a candidate on Nov. 8, qualifying voters can still participate in the runoff.
“If you told me a year ago I was going to be on the ballot for anything, I would have said you’ve got to be out of your mind,” Corley said. “It’s a unique thing how God works for us and takes us places we never thought we’d go.”
Corley said he hopes to see just as many voters turn out for the runoff as voted during the general election.
“This is going to be very important that people go vote,” Holcomb said. “Not a lot of people are voting for someone who’s going to represent a whole lot.”