Pence rallies for Mississippi GOP governor candidate

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence campaigned Monday in Mississippi for the Republican nominee for governor, who's in a tight race with the state's best-funded Democratic nominee in nearly a generation.

"Mississippi and America need Tate Reeves to be the next governor of the great state of Mississippi," Pence told hundreds of people at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum. "Tate Reeves is Mississippi. He's a strong conservative."

Reeves is in his second term as lieutenant governor. The Democratic nominee for governor, Jim Hood, is in his fourth as attorney general. They are on the ballot Tuesday along with two lesser-known candidates. The winner will succeed Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, who is limited by state law to two terms.

Mississippi is having its most competitive governor's race since 2003, when the state's last Democratic governor was unseated by a Republican. Reeves and Hood are spending millions, with support from Republican and Democratic national governors' groups.

This year's race is a dramatic change from four years ago, when the Democratic nominee was a long-haul truck driver who didn't vote for himself in the primary, raised little money and lost the general election by a wide margin.

Republicans have held the governorship in Mississippi for 24 of the past 28 years.

Hood campaigned Monday in the Mississippi Delta, a traditional Democratic stronghold.

"People want to see our roads fixed, and people want to see our rural hospitals open in areas like this where the hospital is really struggling," Hood told reporters in Greenwood. "And people want to see us do more in education."

At times the Reeves event in Biloxi sounded like a rally for President Donald Trump. People leapt to their feet and shouted "four more years" when Pence relayed...