JACKSON, Miss. — Former President Barack Obama is endorsing Democrat Mike Espy in a U.S. Senate race in Mississippi. Espy is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Obama says in a fundraising appeal Wednesday that Espy “has a great chance to win.” Espy calls it his “biggest endorsement yet.”
The race is a rematch of a 2018 special election that Hyde-Smith won. She campaigns as a supporter of President Donald Trump, and Trump appeared at rallies to support her in 2018.
Espy was U.S. agriculture secretary under President Bill Clinton. He’s trying to become Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.