Democrat Albert Littell, 74, said he hopes to put Mississippi at the top of the nation if voters elect him to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Littell will face fellow challengers Scott Colom and Priscilla Williams-Till in the March 10 Democratic primary election. The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary—contested between incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Sarah Adlakha—in the Nov. 3 congressional election.
“My door will always be open, if elected to the Senate, to any state in the Union. I will listen to everybody,” Littell told the Mississippi Free Press in a Jan. 30 interview. “I will get back to them within 24 hours. I will not turn a shy head like Cindy Hyde-Smith has done.”
The son of a single mother, Littell is a southside Chicago, Illinois, transplant who settled in Long Beach, Mississippi, around 2015. The father of five daughters and grandfather of 20 grandkids is a Marine Corps veteran and bladder cancer survivor.
If elected, Littell said he would donate $150,000 from his $174,000 Senate salary to achieve his top priorities. He said he will collaborate with other senators and representatives to help achieve his policy goals.
“I don’t need the money. I’m doing this because I know what it’s like to grow up without having anything. I love people—I love the people of Mississippi,” the candidate said.
Littell wants to increase the minimum wage to a “living wage” of at least $20 based on the cost of living, he said. As a veteran, the candidate said he aims to “help our military” gain better compensation and benefits, including making improvements to medical care and insurance coverage. He said he also wants to improve the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs by increasing access to them.
Littell’s ideas have an emphasis on improving conditions locally across the state. Mississippi communities need more food pantries and homeless shelters, Littell said, emphasizing his desire to get more locally-grown food on the dinner plates of Mississippians. He suggested that cities should add swimming pools and craft teachers for vocational activities in senior centers for people of all ages to use. Another local idea of his is to build sidewalks and provide street lighting in cities, which could benefit everyone from the young to the elderly, he noted.
“When you build new sidewalks and you have to put new poles in as an electric company, it creates jobs, good-paying jobs—union jobs, too,” Littell told the Mississippi Free Press on Jan. 30.
Instead of President Donald Trump using taxpayer dollars to renovate the East Wing and rename the Kennedy Center, Littell said that money should be invested in improving educational opportunities for children.
“I’m a straight shooter and I’m forward and I will fight my ass off to help our people in Mississippi,” he said.
