Former longtime Hattiesburg mayor and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Johnny DuPree on Tuesday filed to run for secretary of state.

DuPree said election reform will be his top issue, and that his experience as a mayor, a school board member and president, a real estate agent and a small business owner make him qualified for the office. No other Democrat has publicly announced a run for the office, but two Republicans, state Sen. Michael Watson and Public Service Commissioner Sam Britton, are running in the GOP primary.

DuPree, 65, served as mayor of Hattiesburg from 2001-2017. In 2011, he was the Democratic nominee for governor, the first African-American to be elected nominee for governor for a major party since Reconstruction.

"I was just about content with private life," DuPree said when asked why he decided to run. "But I started teaching a policy course at (the University of Southern Mississippi) and I talked to and interacted with a lot of young people. It totally surprised me how much work we still need to do with voting, elections — the underpinnings of our democracy.

"There needs to be some election reform in Mississippi," DuPree said. "... How can we make it easier to vote? How do we improve access to the process that is the foundation of our democracy?"

DuPree, who owns a consulting firm and a trucking company, said he has experience with 16th Section lands, business and corporation regulations and filings and other issues the secretary of state's office oversees.