LAUREL, Miss.—Mississippi State Auditor Shad White was deployed in the Middle East for Operation Epic Fury with the Mississippi National Guard for months earlier this year. One morning, White and a group of other soldiers went to a base that he said Iran had targeted and hit “countless times” with rockets, drones and missiles.
He and his colleagues were driving through a central road in the base when he said he saw something he had never seen before: a building that a missile shop wave had blown up, a “huge blast crater” that was near the soldiers’ barracks and a truck that had been blown up and tossed on top of a building. On bases like those, when sirens air warning that missiles are incoming, soldiers have about 90 seconds to take cover, White said.
“I started thinking about the men and women on that base and I realized that those folks are what we think of when we think of the book of Isaiah, and the Lord asks, ‘Whom shall I send?’ They said what? ‘Send me. Send me into harm’s way and I might defend my country.’ And I started thinking about the selflessness of those soldiers at that base,” White said at his campaign announcement reception at Studio 5Fifty in Laurel, Mississippi.
“And sadly, I thought this too, how different is that from some of the corrupt insiders that we have here in Mississippi and some of the weak politicians that we have here in Mississippi. If we had politicians who had one-tenth of the courage of those men and women on that base, think about how much more we would accomplish together,” he continued. “Corruption is not red and it is not blue. There are two parties in Jackson. We have a Republican Party, a Democrat Party, but there is only one ‘Good Ol’ Boys Party’ and I’m here to tell you that those folks have lived like pigs feeding off of a trough of our taxpayer dollars for far too long. And that approach to government ends right now.”
White ended months of speculation and is now running as a Republican for governor in the 2027 election. He kicked off his campaign with a reception at Studio 5Fifty in Laurel, Mississippi, on Nov. 9. The Republican is a native of Jones County, where Laurel is located.
‘Pro-Trump Conservative’
Shad White was born and raised in Sandersville, Mississippi, by a father who worked as an oilfield pumper and a mother who was a public school art teacher. He is a University of Mississippi alumnus, a 2008 Rhodes Scholar and master’s graduate of St. John’s College in Oxford, England. He obtained his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 2014.
White was the policy and research director for former U.S. House Rep. Alan Nunnelee, who served Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District from 2011 until his 2015 death. The young Republican also worked as the director of policy for Phil Bryant when he was serving as lieutenant governor. He served as the campaign manager for Bryant’s 2015 reelection bid for governor.
White worked as a litigation attorney at Butler Snow, LLP, in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and served as a special prosecutor in Rankin County from 2016 to 2017. Directly before becoming Mississippi’s state auditor, White was the director of the Mississippi Justice Institute.
Then-Gov. Phil Bryant appointed White to serve as state auditor in 2018 after Stacey Pickering resigned to chair the Mississippi Veterans Affairs Board. White, then only 32 years old, became the first millennial to serve a statewide office in the Deep South. The young Republican coasted to reelection in 2019 without opposition and won 59% of the vote in his 2023 reelection bid.
White is not shy about his “pro-Trump” values and plans to “bring a corrupt system down” if voters elect him to serve as governor.
“I’ve been told by folks in the media that you’re not supposed to say right now that you’re a pro-Trump conservative. So, just to get it out of the way, I am a pro-Trump conservative,” he said. “The reason is simple. You know, I look back at what’s happened to President Trump over the last few years. I look back at what’s happened with the state auditor’s office, and we have developed, frankly, an A-list set of enemies who have tried to oppose every single thing we have done. And that’s OK because we have this saying in the military, ‘If you are taking fire, you are probably somewhere over target. That’s a sign you’re getting something done.’”
As state auditor, he investigates fraud and brings those cases before the attorney general, the Legislature and the governor. But after he uncovers fraud, state law prohibits the auditor from prosecuting the cases or creating new laws to prevent it.
Over the last couple of years, White has used his position as state auditor as a bully pulpit, sharing his office’s insights and how he believes the governor and Legislature should solve various issues. White plans to “strip the fat” from the government that he uncovered in an 800-page audit recently, reduce taxpayers’ burden to the government and return money to Mississippians. To help accomplish this, he aims to “freeze” property taxes, reduce car tag fees and lower the grocery tax.
As state auditor, White has reduced his office’s budget by $1 million since 2018 when he first began serving in the role. He plans to bring that kind of frugality to the governor’s office, joking that he is so cheap he does not let anyone cut his son’s hair but himself.
White said he wants to “get tough about criminals” and send undocumented immigrants “to the liberal states who say they want them so badly.”
“We are going to enact the toughest laws on violent criminals anywhere in the country,” he said. “I am sick of seeing catch and release. Folks who get arrested and then they get out and then five minutes later, they go murder somebody. That is going to stop. Not only is that going to stop, but we’re going to enact the toughest laws on politicians who steal your money in the entire country.”
As governor, White also said he wants to further remove diversity, equity and inclusion policies from schools and colleges to also prevent them from teaching students that more than two genders exist. He aims to put more money in classrooms and help raise teacher pay instead of sending extra funds to administration.
Foreign adversaries should have no control over Mississippi farmland, he added while promising to protect farmers.
“I see a world where our schools push our kids to their limit and train them for the future,” White said. “I see a government that is lean, where our tax dollars are spent efficiently and where our businesses can grow and thrive. But I’m here to tell you this, and if you hear nothing else today, hear this. If we just elect the next guy up or next gal up, we will not achieve these goals. We have to elect someone with the energy and the tenacity to do this job.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, White has prominently advocated for the Legislature to redraw Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, Mississippi’s only majority-Black congressional district and home to the state’s only Black U.S. House representative, Bennie Thompson.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a key provision which has long prevented states from enacting racially gerrymandered maps for the purpose of diluting the voting power of racial minorities. In recent years, federal courts have cited Section 2 when ordering Mississippi to create more majority-Black legislative and state Supreme Court districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act. But the Louisiana v. Callais decision scrutinizes the usage of race when drawing maps, a requirement that could roll back the gains Black voters made.
It is unknown how far redistricting will go if a special session does come together, though Republican leaders have generally praised the Callais decision.
“I travel all over this state, but I travel a ton in the Delta, too. And I’ll tell you this: The Delta has been at the bottom of far too many rankings for far too long, and the Delta deserves better leadership than Bennie Thompson. It just does. The Delta deserves a congressman who’s going to deliver for (it),” White said at a joint redistricting hearing of the Legislature at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson on Oct. 1. “… There’s a silent majority of people who want better representation for the Mississippi Delta. They want somebody better than Bennie Thompson. They want somebody who is not focused on running the Jan. 6 committee.”
White Broke TANF Scandal News
In mid-2019, a Mississippi Department of Human Services employee tipped then-Gov. Phil Bryant off about a suspicious contract then-MDHS Director John Davis had awarded to a company owned by Brett DiBiase—a retired wrestler and the brother of Ted DiBiase Jr. Bryant turned the tip over to State Auditor Shad White, kicking off Mississippi’s infamous welfare investigation.
Text messages revealed in civil court reveal that Bryant started expressing concerns about projects Davis, Favre and nonprofit operator Nancy New were working on in mid-2019, following the MDHS tip. In one text conversation about a volleyball project at Favre’s alma mater that New and Davis had directed welfare funds toward, Favre pressed Bryant for help, ensuring the project would be fully funded.
On Feb. 5, 2020, White and then-Democratic Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens broke the news of the TANF scandal when they announced the arrests of John Davis, Nancy New, Zachary New and three other people connected to what White called a “sprawling conspiracy” involving tens of millions in misspent welfare funds. At the same time that prosecutors alleged Davis and New were doling out millions in welfare dollars to help wealthy and well-connected friends, the State had been denying up to 99% of poor Mississippi families with children who applied for $170 in monthly TANF benefits.
In 2021, State Auditor Shad White referred Brett Favre, former NFL player Marcus DuPree, retired pro-wrestlers Ted DiBiase Sr., Ted DiBiase Jr., Brett DiBiase, former Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis and others to Fitch’s office to recover misspent welfare funds, including interest. The demands are civil demands, not criminal.
White investigated the welfare scandal, which saw $77 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds diverted to improper uses. Favre received $1.1 million in TANF funds to record promotional material for a nonprofit in 2017. The lawsuit claimed that “Favre voluntarily repaid all the funds,” but while he did pay back $500,000 in May 2020 after news of the welfare scandal broke, the sports celebrity did not repay the remaining $600,000 until after White issued a demand letter for it in late 2021.
Earlier this year, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the state auditor does not have the authority to try to recover misspent welfare funds through litigation. White and Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s public feud over who can sue to recover welfare funds had been ongoing for years at the time of the ruling.
The unanimous opinion affirmed that Fitch as attorney general has the sole right to pursue lawsuits to recover the funds, including interest that White says former NFL quarterback Brett Favre owes the state.
“Now that the court has ruled that Lynn Fitch has the sole authority to file suit to get misspent taxpayer money back, I can only assume the Attorney General will now change course and begin to aggressively fight in court for the recovery of all the welfare money,” White said in a statement from his office. “Maybe she will fight as hard to do that as she fought to stop me from recovering the money. Mississippi taxpayers deserve nothing less.”
While Fitch has not pursued criminal cases in the welfare scandal, leaving that instead to local and federal prosecutors, her office has sought to claw back $77 million in funds from dozens of defendants, including Favre, in a massive civil lawsuit.
Regarding the welfare scandal, in total so far, White’s office has issued demands of $96,312,774.27 and referred them to the attorney general’s office to prosecute.
White is the fourth Republican to announce a bid for governor in the 2027 election, joining current Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson and former Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn. Priscilla Till and Ivana Williams have announced their intentions to run as Democratic candidates for governor. Shaun McInnish Sr. has put his name in the hat as a Libertarian candidate for governor.
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.
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