This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Mississippi is sending its first ever woman to Congress – a fan of Donald Trump. Governor Phil Bryant, who on Monday signed the nation’s strictest anti-abortion law, on Wednesday appointed state agriculture official Cindy Hyde-Smith to the US Senate.

Mississippi senator Thad Cochran announces he is stepping down Read more

Hyde-Smith will succeed fellow Republican Thad Cochran, 80, who is stepping down on 1 April because of poor health. Hyde-Smith, 58, would be the first woman to represent Mississippi in Washington and she will immediately begin campaigning for a November special election to serve the rest of Cochran’s term, which expires in January 2020.

Hyde-Smith, the state’s agriculture commissioner, thanked Bryant and said: “I pledge to you to serve all of our citizens with dignity, honor and respect.”

She is keen to work closely with Mississippi’s other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, she said, and to promote the president’s agenda. In 2016, she was one of many agriculture advisers to Trump’s presidential campaign and she praised his administration for cutting regulations on businesses.

Bryant is also a Trump supporter and has said he believes the president will campaign for Hyde-Smith in the special election, which could attract several candidates in the conservative, deeply Republican state.

Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed state senator who nearly unseated Cochran in a bruising 2014 Republican primary, said last week that he is running in the special election. Democrat Mike Espy, who was President Bill Clinton’s first agriculture secretary, also intends to run. Espy in 1986 became the first African American in modern times to win a congressional seat in Mississippi, and he has publicly supported both Democrats and Republicans in various races.

Cochran’s resignation creates two Senate races this year in Mississippi as Republicans are trying to maintain their slim Senate majority.

Hyde-Smith grew up in the small town of Monticello in southern Mississippi.

She served 12 years as a Democrat in the state senate from her rural district before switching to the Republican party in late 2010.