NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors adopted their redistricting plan Monday as they look ahead to their re-election bids next year.
The five supervisors have been redrawing lines in recent months for their individual districts as they shift voters around to ensure their constituencies have about the same number of people as required by law: around 5,700.
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The county’s new political map shows changes concentrated in three areas: central Adams County south of Liberty Road to Ogden Road and two sections near U.S. 61 north that include Morgantown and other nearby neighborhoods by Martin Luther King Road.
The realignment takes some voters now represented by District 2 Supervisor Kevin Wilson into the district represented by Supervisor Angela Hutchins of District 3. The new map also shifts a few hundred voters from District 5 Supervisor Warren Gaines’ area to District 4 now represented by Supervisor Ricky Gray. Supervisor Wes Middleton’s District 1 remains the same.
All five supervisors said they’re running for re-election in 2023. Middleton, Wilson and Gaines will seek their second terms after unseating incumbents Mike Lazarus, David Carter and Calvin Butler in 2019. Hutchins will be seeking her fourth term while Gray is going for his third.
The current supervisors drew the county’s new electoral map to their satisfaction with the help of their attorney and a redistricting expert to ensure the reapportionment met the legal and population requirements. The supervisors had to remap the political borders because population data from the 2020 Census shows four districts were imbalanced and needed to be realigned.
Electoral districts are required by law to have about the same number of people in the county of about 28,600 residents. This includes the city of Natchez with about 14,500 people.
The new map has Hutchins’ District 3 expanding south to take in populations in parts of Wilson’s District 2. Wilson’s old district had too many people while Hutchins had too few.
Wilson’s district encompasses south-central Adams County while Hutchins’ area covers the county’s southeastern sector.
Gray’s District 4 in northwest Adams County had too few people, so the Board of Supervisors’ new plan has his constituency expanded into Gaines’ District 5, which is northeastern Adams County and was overpopulated. The change has District 4 taking in sections on the west side of Morgantown Road and populations extending to Martin Luther King Drive with Vaughn Drive in the middle.
Middleton’s District 1 had nearly the optimal amount of people and didn’t require a redo. It meanders from much of Natchez to cover southwest Adams County.
The new supervisory districts preserve their old racial alignments: Adams County Districts 3, 4 and 5 are predominantly Black while Districts 1 and 2 are mostly White. Adams County is about 58 percent Black and 38 percent White, according to the U.S. Census.
There’s a March 1 deadline for candidates to file to run in next August’s party primaries and the November 2023 general election.
The U.S Census shows Adams County’s population has declined since 2010 by nearly 2,800 people – down to about 29,500. That official number includes about 900 people incarcerated in 2020 at the CoreCivic private prison in Adams County. The prison population was not counted in redrawing the district lines.
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