Party primaries for 2nd Congressional District and one of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats will appear on the ballot along with the Republican presidential nomination in Mississippi’s statewide preliminary March 13.

The Circuit Clerk’s Office will open each of the next two Saturdays until noon for absentee voting. Mail-in absentees must be received by 5 p.m. March 12. Polls are open March 13 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, stands for another nomination by the party against former Greenville mayor Heather McTeer. Thompson was first elected in 1993. Republican Bill Marcy, who lost to Thompson in 2010, is the lone GOP candidate on the party’s ballot. Independents Cobby Williams and Lajena Williams will face party nominees in the Nov. 6 general election.

In the Senate, Roger Wicker tries for a second term against E. Allen Hathcock, a retired Army veteran, of Starkville, and Robert Maloney in the Republican primary. On the Democratic side, Albert N. Gore Jr., the Oktibbeha County Democratic chairman and retired Army veteran, Roger Weiner, a Coahoma County supervisor and Will Oatis, a businessman and Iraq war veteran, from Silver Creek, vie for the party’s nod for the seat Wicker won in a special election in 2008 after former Sen. Trent Lott retired. Independent Thomas Cramer and Shawn O’Hara appear on the general election ballot.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are on the ballot in Mississippi. Momentum in the race has alternated between Romney, Gingrich and Santorum, though one might emerge from the “Super Tuesday” primary a week before Mississippi’s vote with some form of headwind. Ten states hold caucuses or primaries March 6, while Mississippi, Alabama and Hawaii vote a week later.