JACKSON, Miss. _ Mike Espy is running for the runoff _ the sort of election that some African-Americans have said for years is designed to keep them from winning.
Espy, President Bill Clinton's agriculture secretary and a former congressman, is counting on Mississippi's runoff election system in his bid to become the ruby red state's first African-American U.S. senator since Reconstruction and its first Democratic senator in nearly four decades.
The runoff is baked into Espy's campaign strategy against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel, Republicans who he'll face in a so-called "jungle" primary special election Nov. 6 to finish the final two years of GOP Sen. Thad Cochran's six-year term. Citing health reasons, Cochran retired in April, and Hyde-Smith was named to replace him until the election determined a successor.
