Sam Britton, who serves as the state’s southern district public service commissioner, announced his candidacy for secretary of state Monday.
Britton, 62, is serving in his first term as public service commissioner and aims to replace current Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, who is running for lieutenant governor this year.
Britton will face Sen. Michael Watson in the Republican primary. For months, Watson had campaigned across the state as the sole candidate of either party to announce for the secretary of state’s office.
“Delbert has set the bar high for anyone who follows behind him, and everybody will be judged on the performance of Delbert Hosemann as you move into the future,” Britton told reporters at the Capitol on Monday afternoon. “Yet more things are to be done in this state.”
Before being elected public service commissioner in 2015, Britton, a Laurel resident and a CPA, previously worked for the state’s tax commission and auditor’s office. He said his campaign would focus on maintaining the integrity of elections and growing the economy.
Watson, a well-known state senator from Pascagoula, earned the endorsement of Gov. Phil Bryant, the most popular Republican elected official in the state, according to several polls.
“The governor is an incredibly popular governor,” Britton said on Monday. “As a matter of fact, I’m a fan of the governor. But whenever you come down to it, this is a Republican primary. The governor has every right to choose and back whoever he chooses to do so.”
The qualifying deadline for candidates is March 1.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
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.