NATCHEZ — With only two men vying on each political party primary runoff ballot, Adams County election officials said voter turnout Tuesday was understandably low.

Only 17 percent of registered voters in the county turned out to vote, Adams County Election Commission Chairman Larry Gardner said.

“They weren’t local candidates so a lot of people honestly didn’t know who to vote for.” Gardner said, “We’ve heard a lot of people say ‘Where are these people from?’”

At the end of the day, however, Adams County Democratic voters gave David Baria 69 percent of the vote with 1,224 votes for the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate over Howard Sherman, who garnered 30 percent of the vote with 546 votes. Adams County’s selection mirrored statewide results in which Baria earned the party’s nomination with 59 percent of the vote to Sherman’s 41 percent.

Baria will now face incumbent Republican U.S Sen. Roger Wicker in the Nov. 6 general election.

Republican House of Representatives 3rd District seat hopeful Whit Hughes took Adams County with 55 percent of the vote with 788 votes, over Michael Guest, who got 44 percent of the vote with 626 votes. But statewide earned the Guest will face Democrat Michael Evans in November.

Guest and Evans are seeking to earn the House seat currently held by Rep. Gregg Harper. Harper decided not to run for reelection.

Officials said Tuesday’s primary runoff election went smoothly for Adams County with little surprises. Overall, only 9.6 percent of Democratic voters and 7.7 percent of Republican voters went to the polls.

Gardner said the slow pace of this election came as no surprise to him.

“We expected it would be a little lower,” Gardner said. “When you lose candidates, you lose supporters. That’s typically what happens. You know some people are only excited about their candidate, and when they’re out (of the race) they don’t care who is going to win.”

Gardner said voter turnout had a low percentage in the first primary as well, simply because few people know anything about the candidates. Only 20 percent of voters cast ballots in the first primary election on June 5 — and 17.27 percent voted in the runoff.

Gardner said he expects turnout will improve for the Nov. 6 general election.