MS-Sen: Musgrove will run

We have a candidate:

Former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove confirmed to The Associated Press on Friday that he will run for the U.S. Senate.

Musgrove plans to hold a series of news conferences Monday in Tupelo, Jackson, Hattiesburg and Gulfport.

"I'll be announcing, yes," Musgrove told the AP in a telephone interview from his law office in Madison County.

Musgrove, a Democrat, will run in a special election against Republican Roger Wicker, who was appointed this week to fill the job left vacant by the retirement of the GOP's Trent Lott.

Of course, we still don't know whether the special election will be held in the next three months, or on Election Day in November.

I think it's unlikely that another serious candidate steps up with Musgrove in the race, so it's fairly safe to assume that Musgrove and Wicker are the candidates, whenever the election is held.

Musgrove's polling numbers are relatively strong. Research 2000 did a poll for Daily Kos showing Musgrove trailing Wicker, 47-39, although that poll undersampled African-Americans. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner ran their own poll, and showed Musgrove defeating Wicker, 48-34.

Two thoughts about Musgrove's entry into this race:

-Musgrove is a serious enough candidate to force the NRSC to spend real money here to defend Wicker. This is critical in a year when we are not only outraising the NRSC overall, but fielding moderate to serious challenges to Republican held seats in 8 to 10 other states, depending on how things develop. The entry of a legitimate candidate into this race spreads the NRSC's already heavily taxed resources even thinner.

-If Obama is the nominee, and it's certainly looking like he has a good shot at this point, black turnout next November could be even higher in Mississippi than it usually is, which could make the difference in the Senate race.

Update: cali points us to today's AP article in the Clarion-Ledger which indicates that former Congressman Ronnie Shows, who lost to Chip Pickering in 2002 after redistricting made his district heavily Republican, will run for the seat along with Musgrove.

Race tracker wiki: MS-Sen