In his victory speech, Hosemann touted the achievements of his first term and pointed to several issues he plans on addressing in the 2024 legislative session, including health care needs and workforce training.
“We want to build a state where our children and grandchildren want to stay and live,” Hosemann said.
Hosemann received nearly 52% of the Republican primary vote, avoiding a runoff with McDaniel. McDaniel received around 43% of the vote, and long-shot candidate Longino received around 5%.
Hosemann avoided talking about the nastiness of the race between him and the McDaniel campaign. He did promise to push for serious campaign finance reform, after filing several claims that McDaniel and PACs related to him violated state laws. Last week, Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced her office is investigating a PAC created by McDaniel’s campaign treasurer.
“When you have this much dark money pumped into a race, almost $1 million in the last week, it screams for reform,” Hosemann said. “We are going to listen to those screams.”
During the primary, Hosemann portrayed himself as the choice for common sense conservatives, and championed substantive legislation passed during his term like the largest income tax cut and teacher pay raise in state history.
As he has done in past election cycles, McDaniel portrayed himself as the only “true conservative” in the race, trying to brand his opponent as “Delbert the Democrat.” Hosemann, in turn, called McDaniel an ineffective senator who “doesn’t come to work.”
McDaniel avoided a repeat of his 2014 Senate run against Thad Cochran, where he refused to accept his loss, by conceding late Tuesday night after the Associated Press called the race.
“While the road to get here has been tough, I am forever grateful for the hard work of my grassroots supports who built this campaign from the ground up,” McDaniel said in a statement. “Tonight, it’s clear Delbert Hosemann heard you, and I know grassroots patriots will continue to encourage him to fight for Mississippi values and our conservatives principles.”
Hosemann will face D. Ryan Grover, a Democrat who ran unopposed, in the general election on Nov. 7.
