State Rep. Toby Barker, R-Hattiesburg, announced his candidacy for mayor of his hometown Thursday morning.
Barker, who was first elected to the House in 2007 at the age of 26, made the announcement on Facebook. The short post was accompanied by a video featuring Hattiesburg residents who support Barker’s mayoral run.
“Regardless of how we each came to live here, the one thing that unites us is a love for this city (Hattiesburg),” Barker wrote in the post. “Though we have challenges, I believe they stand as an opportunity for us to come together, believe in ourselves again and work toward a positive future – a future built on quality education, state-of-the-art infrastructure and strong neighborhoods in every part of the city.”
Barker will not have to vacate his House seat during his mayoral run.
In late 2016, Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, announced his intention to run for Jackson mayor. Horhn is still serving in the Senate during the mayoral campaign.
Barker will square off against several opponents in the race, including current Mayor Johnny DuPree, who lost a general election gubernatorial race to Gov. Phil Bryant in 2011. Primaries will be held May 2. The general election is June 6.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.