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(Reuters) - Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won a U.S. Senate special election runoff in Mississippi on Tuesday, the Associated Press projected, defeating a black challenger after a campaign that recalled the state’s history of racist violence.

Hyde-Smith, a white former state lawmaker who was appointed to the Senate in April, overcame a controversy over her comment on public hangings to defeat Democrat Mike Espy in the last contest of the 2018 election cycle.