By Steve Barnes
The violent storms swept across Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi, overturning trucks, trapping people, and smashing houses.
Several candidates expressed condolences to the victims as they addressed supporters and there were media reports that at least four polling stations in western Tennessee were closed because of the storm.
"It's a pretty rough night in the scope of it. I don't know if I can remember when we've had as many (tornado) warnings and
The governor's spokesman, Matt DeCample, said there was "no clue" as to how many were injured. "We're getting answers back in the multiples, but we're still looking for folks," he said.
Six more died in Tennessee, according to the Nashville Tennessean newspaper, and more than two dozen others were injured, some critically.
Extensive damage in Tennessee included part of a shopping mall in Memphis and a dormitory at Union University in Jackson, where some students were trapped for a time but not seriously injured, according to the Web site of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The newspaper quoted a National Weather Service spokesman as saying the Memphis area had been hit by a "pretty significant tornado."
ABC affiliate WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi reported that a 50-foot (15-metre) wall had collapsed at the Sears store in the Hickory Ridge Mall in southeast Memphis and a building caught fire along State Line Road at Airways Boulevard.
The Jackson Sun reported that a nursing home had been seriously damaged but the 114 residents were evacuated with no injuries reported.
The paper reported that the National Weather Service had recorded a half dozen tornadoes in Tennessee and northern Mississippi.
(Writing by Mike Conlon and Todd Eastham; additional reporting by Pat Harris in Nashville and Richard Cotton in Tupelo, Mississippi; Ed Stoddard in Dallas, Editing by Sandra Maler and Chris Wilson)
