JACKSON - Former Columbus mayor Jeffrey Rupp is counting on a final dash of TV ads and a north Mississippi base of reliable followers Tuesday to carry him into a runoff on who'll be the Republican nominee for secretary of state.

Jackson attorney Delbert Hosemann - backed by a bevy of money and endorsements - is seen as the front-runner in the four-man race, but Rupp hopes he can grab enough votes to forestall an outright victory Tuesday and keep the race going.

 

“Our goal is to get into the runoff,” Rupp said Friday. “We feel like we're headed to a runoff. We've gotten good responses to our television ads.”

 

Also in the GOP secretary of state race are state Rep. Mike Lott of Petal and former state Department of Agriculture employee Gene Sills of Crystal Springs.

 

If no candidate gets a majority Tuesday, a second primary will be held Aug. 28.

 

The winner of the Republican primary will face the nominee picked in the Democratic race. That field of Democrats has former state attorney general John Windsor of Corinth, former state senator Rob Smith of Richland and state Department of Education employee Jabari Toins of Jackson.

 

Democrat incumbent Eric Clark is not running for re-election after serving 12 years as Mississippi's chief elections officer and land manager.

 

Rupp, 47, was Columbus mayor from 2001 until he resigned in August 2006, a year after being re-elected to his second term. He quit to become director of community and governmental relations at Mississippi State University. After six months at MSU, he left to start his campaign for secretary of state.

 

Now a Starkville resident, the Pennsylvania native came to Mississippi in 1984. He worked as a news reporter-anchor at WCBI-TV in Columbus from 1986 to 2000. He was also vice president of Columbus-based Imes Communications.

Noting he reported about candidates for various political offices as a TV journalist, Rupp said he's enjoyed being on the campaign trail as he treks throughout the state.

 

“It's a privilege to actually be a candidate,” he said last month at the Neshoba County Fair's annual jamboree of political speakers.

 

Rupp is banking on his 16 years of area TV exposure to spur voters out for him Tuesday.

 

“I've got to do well in north Mississippi. It's where I'm most well known,” he said.

 

Rupp's election experience so far has been successful. He won the GOP primary for Columbus mayor with 77 percent of the vote against an incumbent in his 2001 election. He got 84 percent of the vote in his second election. In the general elections, he won by nearly 2-1 margins in both his first and second victories, which he notes is unprecedented for a Columbus Republican mayoral candidate.

 

In his run for secretary of state, Rupp is stressing his experience as Columbus mayor, his support for a voter-identification law and his ties to Republican Gov. Haley Barbour.

 

“The secretary of state has got to be the lead cheerleader (for voter ID),” he said.

 

“I've been a part of Haley's team since before he was governor. .... I'm the only candidate who has had any experience in the executive branch of government.”

 

Hosemann has the most campaign money in the GOP secretary of state's race. He has reported more than $476,200 in contributions and $400,000 in expenditures so far in the campaign. Rupp follows with more than $155,500 in donations and $126,100 in spending.

 

Lott is behind with more than $46,200 in receipts and $25,530 in expenditures. Sills has received little money.

While Hosemann has the funds to swamp the airwaves with his “Gilbert ad” - a humorous depiction of an elderly woman who can't get the candidate's first name right - Rupp said he's been able to cultivate a legion of supporters behind the scenes.

 

Having money for a massive wave of ads, Rupp said, “is not the only thing. It's important, but we feel like we've got a good network of supporters.”

 

As Tuesday nears, he said last week he did produce new television spots to air in the Republican strongholds of Desoto County, Meridian and the Gulf Coast. “We hope that cuts through the clutter,” Rupp said of the commercials.

Hosemann has boasted of the various endorsements he's received in recent weeks from special-interest groups and newspapers.

 

“I am excited that we are building such a great and diverse team as we campaign across our great state,” said the 60-year-old business attorney and real estate developer.

 

Hosemann waged an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 and dropped out of the attorney general's race in 2003.

 

A past runner in the Boston and New York City marathons, Hosemann has been the early favorite for the secretary of state's job since becoming a candidate in February.

 

“I'm in great shape for this campaign and I've hit the trail hard,” he said.

 

The secretary of state oversees the holding of elections and is Mississippi's chief vote statistician.

 

He also supervises public lands - such as Gulf Coast tidelands and 16th Section school land - regulates charities, polices investment advisors and administers the registration of corporations. He also compiles and publishes the state Blue Book, Mississippi's official resource of information about state and local government.

 

His salary is $90,000 a year.

 

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