 In 1942, Eastland was one of three candidates who challenged Doxey for a full term.Doxey had the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mississippi's senior US Senator, Theodore G. Bilbo, but Eastland defeated him in the Democratic primary.At the time, Mississippi was effectively a one-party state, dominated by white Democrats since the disfranchisement of African Americans with the passage of the 1890 state constitution.