Mississippi gubernatorial election, 2003
|
|||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
County results
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
The 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on 4 November 2003 for the post of governor of Mississippi. The incumbent governor, Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, was defeated by Republican Haley Barbour.
The election was the most expensive yet in Mississippi with the candidates raising over 18 million dollars between them. The national parties also spent millions on television adverts for the election such as the over 5 million spent by the Republican Governors Association. Barbour's victory in the election made him only the second Republican governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction.
Musgrove was elected governor in 1999 after a very close election against Michael Parker. As neither candidate had obtained a majority in the election, Musgrove was chosen as governor by the Democratic controlled Mississippi House of Representatives.
As governor, Musgrove had difficulties with the state's legislators. He vetoed the whole budget one year but was overridden by the legislature. However Musgrove campaigned on having secured the largest pay rise for teachers in the State's history.
Barbour, a former advisor in the White House during the presidency of Ronald Reagan and Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1996, announced that he would run for governor on 17 February 2003. He had previously failed to be elected to the U.S. Senate for Mississippi in 1982, and in 1983 he travelled the state for several months to gauge support for his gubernatorial bid.
...
Wikipedia