JACKSON, Miss.—Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch smiled and waved as she made her way through the throng of supporters gathered at the Mississippi Republican Party headquarters in Jackson on Aug. 5. Donning a crisp white suit and matching heels, she was on her first of eight statewide campaign stops that week to announce that she is running for governor in the 2027 election.
“As governor, I will focus on making life more affordable, on making our community safer and making our economy stronger—all the while, remaining aligned with our core values in our state being faith, family and freedom,” she told supporters during a campaign event at the Mississippi Republican Party headquarters in Jackson. “And we have a great ally in President (Donald) Trump. But we must always be prepared to stand strong for life and liberty in our state.”
Fitch calls herself a “Trump conservative” who has a strong relationship with the Trump administration and has “stood with President Trump time and time again.” She said she supported and assisted with his effort to “detain and deport dangerous criminals that are in our state,” including obtaining certifications for her office’s investigators to partner with U.S. immigration agents.
Fitch is the first woman to serve as attorney general and the first Republican to serve in the role since 1878. If elected, she would be Mississippi’s first woman governor. She is the first woman elected to statewide office to run a campaign for governor since former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy, a Democrat, ran for governor in 1979. Gandy ultimately lost to Republican Gov. William Winters.
Voters elected Fitch to serve as attorney general in 2019 and again in 2023. Before that, she served two terms as the state treasurer. She told reporters that her time as treasurer gave her a strong understanding of the state’s finances, which she said is a strength in her record as a candidate for governor.
A Holly Springs, Mississippi, native, Fitch is a graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law. Earlier in her career, she worked as a bond lawyer, a counselor for the Mississippi House’s Ways and Means Committee, a special assistant attorney general at the attorney general’s office and as the deputy executive director at the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. Former Gov. Haley Barbour appointed her to serve as the executive director of the Mississippi State Personnel Board in 2009.
Lowering Income Tax and Healthcare Affordability at Top of Fitch’s Priorities
Gov. Tate Reeves signed a law last year that will gradually phase out the income tax. Lynn Fitch advocated for speeding up that process but did not provide specifics when reporters asked her at the Aug. 5 press conference.
“If you’re not paying your personal income tax, that’s a huge benefit to you,” she told reporters. “That’s a huge benefit for the workforce as we attract businesses.”
Under House Bill 1, income tax rates for Mississippians who make more than $10,000 will fall from 4.4% in 2025 to 4% in 2026; the rate will drop to 3.75% in 2027 and by an additional 0.25% each year until the tax rate equals 3% in 2030.
Beginning in 2031, additional reductions of Mississippi’s income tax are conditional on the State meeting certain revenue targets.
She also noted that she aimed to improve “healthcare outcomes” if elected to serve as governor by protecting and investing in independent pharmacies and rural hospitals. Insulin is too expensive for the 13% of Mississippians who rely on it, the attorney general added, mentioning a lawsuit she filed against insulin manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers to force them to lower insulin prices.
“I talk to people that can’t afford it,” Fitch said. “They’re rationing their insulin. They’re getting it from across the border, and that is really harmful and that puts those individuals back in our hospitals and needing healthcare.”
She said she wants to morph the “Mississippi Miracle” into the “Mississippi momentum” by continuing the education gains the state has made over the past few years and adding financial literacy education classes into the K-12 curriculum.
Fitch pledged to support “Mississippi’s innovators” and small businesses with legislation, policies and grants while finding creative ways to draw patrons to local businesses if voters elect her to be Mississippi’s next governor.
Regulating the ‘Social Media Cartel’
If elected governor, Lynn Fitch said she wants to continue adding regulations to the “social media cartel” to ensure that predators are not targeting children online. All social media platforms should require parental approval and age verification for children’s accounts, she said, adding that if a social media company “damage(s) a child,” the platform should be ready to face consequences under Mississippi law.
“We’ll continue to press really hard and make that happen in our state and continue to be a leader in that regard as well,” Fitch told reporters.
While serving as attorney general, Fitch has helped push legislation over the finish line that she said protects kids online by implementing age-verification checks on pornographic sites and certain social media sites.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers sponsored and passed the age-verification law in 2024, called the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act. The bill passed without opposition and lawmakers cited a desire to regulate children’s use of social media. Fitch argued that the law would help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion, and more.”
The law is named after 16-year-old Walker Montgomery, whose father said died by suicide after a sextortioner on Instagram threatened to share an explicit video of him if he did not send them $1,000.
A federal court had blocked the law from taking effect amid a lawsuit from tech industry group NetChoice, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to go into effect earlier this month while the lawsuit proceeds.
While artificial intelligence data centers have been an “excellent opportunity” for economic growth, Fitch said regulations and safeguards should be in place for the centers. Trump’s plan for states to require large data center operators to fund their own electricity generation and infrastructure—instead of taxpayers—is a good step in the right direction, Fitch added.
“I’m a very, very pro-business attorney general,” she told reporters. “I always believe in talking to these companies, not just suing them right off the bat, but as we see issues, (we) talk to them, find out what they can do, how they can come to the table rather than having a full-blown lawsuit.”
Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Fitch
Fitch’s office’s successful arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization allowed abortion bans to take effect in Republican-led states across the country, including Mississippi’s laws banning virtually all abortions.
Before Fitch took the case, Mississippi’s Democratic former attorney general, Jim Hood, argued to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. Lower courts initially struck the law down, as well as a separate six-week abortion ban, citing Roe v. Wade’s 1973 ruling that found a constitutional right to abortion and a 1992 ruling that affirmed that core precedent. The Dobbs decision overturned both precedents.
The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Candidate Fund endorsed Fitch in an Aug. 5 press release.
“Fitch has fought the battle for life all the way to the Supreme Court and won. For some, it would have been easy to choose the safe path of merely defending state law while leaving the larger issue, the injustice of Roe v. Wade, untouched. Not for Attorney General Fitch,” the organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in the press release. “Her boldness and courage paid off in the landmark Dobbs victory for human rights, restoring the right of the people and their elected representatives all across America to protect unborn human life. In the days that followed, she moved swiftly to certify the will of Mississippians to protect babies throughout pregnancy, the strongest stance in the nation.”
Fitch is the third Republican candidate to announce a campaign for governor. Mississippi Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson announced his campaign last year. Former Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn also put his hat in the governor’s race. The primary election is set for Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2027, and the general election will be on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2027.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of the 2027 elections and read past stories here.
Mississippi Free Press stories are always free because we believe everyone should have access to quality journalism. Donations from readers like you make that possible. Please click here to give to help sustain and grow vital, people-over-power journalism for Mississippians.
Readers can sign up for our free newsletters here.
