Adams County voters chose U.S. Sen. John Kerry over President Bush with 54 percent of the vote Tuesday, but the majority of votes across the state went to Bush, giving him Mississippi’s six electoral votes.

In other races in Adams County, longtime District 5 election commissioner Bob Barrett, a Republican, was defeated by Democrat Mitch Ballard.

Adams County voters did follow the rest of the state in overwhelmingly approving a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Adams County voters also chose Mike Randolph over Joe Lee for in the Place 3 (Southern district) Supreme Court race.

Many Mississippians embraced Bush’s approach to dealing with terrorism and his conservative stands on issues such as abortion. However, Democrats and some Republican faithful said they were upset with the president’s handling of the war in Iraq.

Bush captured Mississippi’s six electoral votes. When he won Mississippi four years ago, the state had seven electoral votes. Slow population growth caused Mississippi to lose one of its U.S. House seats and, therefore, one of its electoral votes.

Mississippi apparently was never considered in play in this year’s presidential race, and neither nominee had campaigned in the state since the summer conventions.

Voters on Tuesday also overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Incumbents were re-elected in all four U.S. House seats. Four of the nine state Supreme Court positions also were on ballots. Three incumbent justices won and the race for the fourth was too close to call late Tuesday.

Contractor Greg Smith of Brandon served in the military in the early 1990s under President George H.W. Bush, father of the current president. Smith said he voted for George W. Bush four years ago and again on Tuesday.

”I think they have a lot of similar leadership qualities,” Smith, 35, said of the Bushes.

He said he also had qualms about Kerry.

”I don’t like his world view policy, where he is more interested in opinions of foreign governments and foreign people than of the people here,” Smith said after voting at St. Mark United Methodist Church near the Ross Barnett Reservoir.

Machinist Robert Shelton of Ridgeland, who has a son in the military, said he voted for Kerry because he believes Bush led the nation into the wrong kind of war in Iraq.

”I could kind of understand if there was a valid reason to be over there, but there is no valid reason,” Shelton, 60, said after voting at a Ridgeland apartment complex. ”He knew in the first place it was (Osama) bin Laden who attacked the country, not (Saddam) Hussein. If he’s got something against Hussein, let him and his daddy go over there and fight the man.”

Despite rain across much of the state, voters stood in long lines at many precincts. Secretary of State Eric Clark had predicted Mississippi voting could top 1 million for the first time, up from the 994,184 who voted in 2000.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who chaired Bush’s campaign in Mississippi, said ”we didn’t take anything for granted.”

”We in the South are solidly conservative, pro-life, pro-family, against same-sex marriages,” Barbour said at a Republican gathering in downtown Jackson. ”I feel good. It’s just going to be a close election because people in different parts of the country have different ideas.”

James Stewart, a political science professor at Mississippi College, said Mississippi ”was not a blowout” for Bush. He said social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage seem to have motivated voters in the state.

”If people were voting the economy, they would not be voting with the Republicans at this point,” Stewart said.

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Mississippi has gone Republican in presidential races for decades, and neither Bush nor his running mate, Vice President Dick Cheney, appeared in the state this year.

Kerry campaigned in Jackson in March before the Democratic primary. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Kerry’s running mate John Edwards, spoke at a fund-raising reception in Jackson in September.

Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia governor, was the last Democrat to claim Mississippi’s electoral votes for president. That was in 1976.

Since the Ronald Reagan election of 1980, Mississippi has remained solidly in the Republican column for president. Not even fellow Southerners Bill Clinton of Arkansas or Al Gore of Tennessee could grab Mississippi’s votes in 1992, 1996 or 2000.

In 2000, Bush, a former Texas governor, carried Mississippi with nearly 58 percent of the vote.

According to the Federal Election Commission, that made Mississippi the strongest Southeastern state for Bush. Nationwide for Bush, Mississippi in 2000 was behind Wyoming (68 percent), Idaho and Utah (67 percent each), Nebraska (62 percent), North Dakota (61 percent), Oklahoma and South Dakota (60 percent each), Alaska and Texas (59 percent each) and at the same level as Kansas and Montana (58 percent).