Military veteran Brian Flowers on Tuesday won the Mississippi Republican primary runoff to try to unseat Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson in November.

Flowers defeated another veteran, Ronald Eller, in the western Mississippi race.

Thompson is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and chairman of a committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Thompson has been in Congress since winning a 1993 special election. The 2nd District encompasses most of western Mississippi and much of the metro Jackson area.

Flowers lost to Thompson in 2020 and now says Thompson “is trying to intimidate American patriots” with the Jan. 6 investigation.

Eller campaigned on free enterprise and limited government.