Latest news: Democrats downplay Trump rallies on the eve of elections

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Latest news from the US Senate race in Mississippi (all local times):

2:40 p.m.

Democrat Mike Espy says he's running his own race and will not be discouraged by President Donald Trump's visit to Mississippi to campaign for US Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on the eve of Tuesday's special election.

Espy told reporters Monday in the Ridgeland suburb that Trump "will say everything he has to say".

The former United States Secretary of Agriculture continues to point out that he is a moderate who seeks the votes of all and is willing to work beyond party boundaries. He notes that he has crossed the "party chasm" to approve the re-election of Republican Governor Haley Barbour in Mississippi in 2007.

Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate by Governor Phil Bryant when Thad Cochran retired earlier this year. The winner of Tuesday's vote will have the last two years of the mandate.

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2:05 p.m.

A civil rights group challenges Mississippi's postal voting procedures in a lawsuit filed on the eve of the second-round US Senate elections.

The Washington-based Committee on Civil Rights Lawyers is asking a federal court to have Mississippi extend the deadline for voters to return ballot papers by mail.

The complaint indicates that some voters did not have time to fill out and mail ballots for the second round of the Thanksgiving holiday unless paying for an expensive expedition the next day.

The group sued on behalf of the Mississippi NAACP and three voters.

The Secretary of State's office did not immediately return an email requesting comments.

Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith will face Democrat Mike Espy next Tuesday.

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8:17

President Donald Trump travels to Mississippi on Monday for a nominee to the Republican Senate who wants voters to focus on his unwavering support, not on the racial issues that made Tuesday's final election a much-contested contest. tighter than expected.

Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith made Monday's rallies the culmination of her campaign against Democrat Mike Espy and Trump on Twitter thanking him for voting for "our agenda in the Senate 100% of the time" .

But race has become a dominant issue as Hyde-Smith faces Espy, a former congressman and US secretary of agriculture, who would become Mississippi's first black senator since Reconstruction.

Hyde-Smith drew fire for a photo showing her wearing the replica hat of a Confederate soldier, as well as a video showing the praise of a supporter saying: "S & # 's 39, he invited me to a public hanging, I would be in the first row. "