National Election Returns : State-by-State Election Reports of Key Races and Issues : Mississippi

Mississippi’s Republican Rep. Trent Lott, the House minority whip, defeated Democratic Rep. Wayne Dowdy to win the U.S. Senate seat held for 41 years by John C. Stennis.

The victory gives the Deep South state two Republican senators for the first time in this century as George Bush won the state’s seven electoral votes.

With 64% of the precincts reporting, Lott had 298,767 votes to Dowdy’s 263,534.

Bush had 208,069 votes, or 57%, and Democrat Michael Dukakis had 156,233, or 43%, after 41% of the votes for President were counted.

Dowdy, who like Lott surrendered a safe congressional seat, avoided tying his campaign to Dukakis. He spent $1.5 million--half of what Lott spent as the Republican stressed his links to the Reagan Administration and Bush.

Thad Cochran’s election in 1978 made him the state’s first Republican senator in more than 100 years. Stennis appealed to voters not to turn both seats over to the GOP.

Democratic Rep. Mike Espy, the state’s first black congressman since Reconstruction, easily won a second term, and it appeared the state’s House delegation would stay at four Democrats and a Republican.