History
In 1956, Wirt A. Yerger, Jr. founded the modern Mississippi Republican Party and served as the first State Chairman from 1956 until 1966. He was Chairman of the Mississippi Delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1956, 1960 and 1964. He was elected to a four-year term as Chairman of the Southern Association of Republican State Chairman in 1960. In 2009, the Central Committee of the Mississippi Republican Party named Yerger Chairman Emeritus. The Mississippi Republican Party would grow in supporters with the popularity of then President Dwight D. Eisenhower and on September 24, 1960, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon campaigned in the state, the first time a presidential candidate had appeared in the state in more than a century. During the 1964 Republican National Convention Mississippi delegates would help nominate Barry Goldwater for President. Goldwater would go on to win 87 percent of the vote in Mississippi in the 1964 Presidential Election, the first time a Republican would win the state since the Reconstruction Era. Only once since 1956 has a non-Republican presidential candidate won the state of Mississippi, Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential Election. In 1988, Republican Congressman Trent Lott would defeat Democratic Congressman Wayne Dowdy to replace retiring Senator John Stennis(D-MS).
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