MS-3 · House
election-day forecast · ground-up model · as of 2026-10-02
The district, in brief
Mississippi's 3rd district is described in the text as taking in Meridian, Starkville, Pearl, Brookhaven and most of the wealthier portions of Jackson, including the part of the city in Rankin County; the opening of that sentence is cut off in the text. The lines are the map first used in 2022 and the district is not redrawn for 2026. The facts carry no presidential baseline for this district.
The incumbent is Republican Michael Guest, re-elected unopposed in 2024; the facts record his 2022 win at a two-party margin of -41.48 for the Democrat. The text names him as the Republican nominee but its Republican primary result table is broken and gives no figures. The Democratic nominee is Michael Chiaradio, who was unopposed in his primary; the text gives no description of him. A Libertarian, Erik Kiehle, a property manager, is listed as declared and appears in the general-election table. As of June 30, 2026 Guest had raised $822,760 with $962,515 on hand; Chiaradio had raised $155,399 with $23,208 on hand; Kiehle reported $0.
Every rater listed calls the seat R: Decision Desk HQ (July 14, 2026), the Cook Political Report (March 13, 2025), Inside Elections (March 7, 2025) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (July 15, 2025). The text records no district polls.
No model forecast is on file for this district (facts.forecast is null). The facts' candidate list also carries Jeffrey Hulum III, Mike Ezell and Carl Boyanton, none of whom appear in this district's text.
The facts, each beside its sentence
The incumbent is Republican Michael Guest, who was re-elected unopposed in 2024.
The incumbent is Republican Michael Guest
candidate: Michael Chiaradio party: Democratic Party (United States) votes: 25,902 percentage: 100.0
Michael Guest, incumbent U.S. representative
Michael Guest, incumbent U.S. representative
who was re-elected unopposed in 2024
candidate: Michael Chiaradio party: Democratic Party (United States) votes: 25,902 percentage: 100.0
The Cook Political Report R March 13, 2025 Inside Elections R March 7, 2025
Michael Guest (R) $822,760 $371,591 $962,515
Erik Kiehle, property manager
Not in the source: No forecast is on file for this district (facts.forecast is null).; The facts' candidate list includes Jeffrey Hulum III (D), Mike Ezell (R) and Carl Boyanton (I), who do not appear in this district's text; the facts appear to mix in another district's candidates.; The text is truncated: the district description's opening is cut off, the Republican primary result table is broken, and the Democratic primary section header and Chiaradio's description are missing.; No presidential result is given for the district, in the text or in the facts (presidential_baseline is null).; The text records no district polls.; No rating finer than 'R' is given (no Lean/Likely/Safe).
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as fda0e5bc533a; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Michael Guest (Republican), in this chamber since 2019, 4 terms. Committees: House Committee on Appropriations; House Committee on Homeland Security; House Committee on Ethics (Chair).
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+23.9 | R+21.3 | R+26.7 |
A shift of 2.8 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
Who are the voters?
| Group (adults 25+) | Share of adults | Turnout 2020 / midterm | Share of a midterm electorate | Est. Democratic share, 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White, no degree | 43% | 63% / 41% | 38% | 8% |
| White, degree | 20% | 86% / 64% | 28% | 24% |
| Black | 32% | 72% / 47% | 32% | 82% |
| Hispanic | 2% | 34% / 3% | 0% | 46% |
| Asian | 1% | 22% / 10% | 0% | 49% |
| Other / multiracial | 2% | 69% / 46% | 2% | 40% |
Of about 484,904 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 37.8% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 37.2% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 1.3 points toward Republicans. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.
Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guest, Michael Patrick (REP) incumbent | $822,761 | $962,515 | 45% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Chiaradio, Michael Alexis (DEM) challenger | $155,400 | $23,208 | 0% | 11% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; no independent expenditures reported for or against any candidate, which usually means nobody outside the district thinks it is in play.
The district in numbers
| Measure | District | Nation | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+ | 27.9% | 34.9% | -7.0 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic | 58.9% | 58.2% | +0.6 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 33.9% | 12.0% | +21.9 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino | 2.8% | 19.0% | -16.2 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 1.1% | 5.8% | -4.6 pts |
| Foreign-born | 2.3% | 13.9% | -11.6 pts |
| Median age | 38.4 | 39.2 | -0.8 |
| Median household income | $57,738 | $84,362 | $-26,624 |
| Median home value | $169,700 | $379,737 | $-210,037 |
| Owner-occupied homes | 72.2% | 65.1% | +7.2 pts |
| Unemployment, July 2026 (BLS county data) | 3.6% | 4.4% | -0.8 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months | -0.5 pts | — | — |
| Change since the last election (24 months) | +0.0 pts | — | — |
| Unemployment (ACS) | 5.2% | 5.2% | -0.0 pts |
| Federal government workers | 2.7% | 2.6% | +0.1 pts |
| Work from home | 5.3% | 13.5% | -8.2 pts |
| Households on SNAP | 11.7% | 11.8% | -0.1 pts |
| Households with Social Security income | 34.1% | 31.2% | +2.9 pts |
| Households with public assistance income | 1.5% | 2.7% | -1.1 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year | 1.7% | 2.3% | -0.6 pts |
| Gini index | 0.50 | 0.44 | 0.06 |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $55,895 | $73,248 | $-17,353 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 34.3% | 32.0% | +2.3 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 25.6% | 19.6% | +6.0 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 8.1% | 5.8% | +2.2 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 6.3% | 4.5% | +1.9 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 4.3% | 4.0% | +0.3 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.6% | 0.6% | -0.1 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.8% | 0.4% | +0.4 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 1.0% | 0.9% | +0.2 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.7% | 1.3% | -0.6 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.1% | 0.9% | +0.2 pts |
ACS 5-year 2023, the Census Bureau's own tabulation of this district (118th Congress lines). Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.
Who is favoured, and by how much?
The 90% interval runs from -39.4 to -11.5 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.
What is this built on?
A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.
Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.
Why does the model say this?
Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: 2024 presidential lean (R+27.8): 13.9 pts toward the Republican; 2024 House lean: 4.8 pts toward the Republican; religion: southern baptist (34.3%): 1.8 pts toward the Republican; experience gap (-4 levels, D minus R): 1.4 pts toward the Republican; asian share (1.2%): 1.4 pts toward the Republican.
How sure is it, and of what?
Total sd 8.51 points, made of the seat's own volatility 91%, correlated polling error 9%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.
How was this number made?
Run 00a09d4b-7980-4ec5-ada0-077968a87242, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).