Mail-ballot window likely delays final result until at least November 10
Scott Colom held a 1,138-vote lead over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday evening, with 96% of the votes in Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race counted and about 50,000 ballots still outstanding. The result was not yet settled as Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms.
The lead changed as ballots were processed. Hyde-Smith led with about 30% of the vote counted, but Colom began to gain a small edge as more results came in. By Wednesday morning, Colom was ahead by only a few dozen votes; by Wednesday evening, his advantage had reached 1,138 with about 50,000 ballots left to count.
Mississippi does not automatically recount tight races and does not allow candidates to request recounts. The state allows mail-in ballots to be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days later. Julie Wronski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Mississippi, said the close margin required waiting for every allowable vote. “Because the difference between the two candidates is so narrow, really, we’re going to have to wait for every single vote received in any capacity to be counted,” Wronski said. She said the race was very likely not to be called until at least November 10.
Mississippi has not elected a Democratic candidate to the U.S. Senate in more than 40 years. Hyde-Smith, elected in 2018, is the first woman to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Congress and has President Donald Trump’s endorsement; Trump won the state by more than 22 points in 2024. If Colom wins, he will be the first Black U.S. senator elected in Mississippi since 1875.
The race came as Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, scoring victories in South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, which had not elected Democratic senators in decades. The Democratic Party sent extra funding to Mississippi in recent weeks after seeing an unexpected opportunity to flip the seat.
On the campaign trail, Colom, a district attorney, focused on his Christian faith and economic concerns. He criticized Trump’s policies, including the war in Iran and the rising cost of living in the U.S.
Wronski said Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in 2018 to fill a vacancy, ran a mostly lacklustre campaign and relied on the state’s reliably conservative base. “The lack of public appearances was quite striking,” Wronski added.
Donald Trump campaigned alongside Hyde-Smith last month, saying he was there “because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance”.
Mississippi has the largest percentage of African Americans in the U.S., at nearly 40%. The group overwhelmingly votes Democratic and reportedly showed up in large numbers this election. Charles Taylor, director of the NAACP’s Mississippi branch, told the BBC that the organization saw a huge swell in Black voter participation leading into Election Day.
“We saw long lines for absentee voting. We saw long lines in person yesterday. Folks everywhere were motivated across the state,” Taylor said. He added: “So, when the data comes back, I think it’s going to tell a story that black voters turned out and turned out big.”
Colom told the Washington Post in October that Democrats had not typically done well in Mississippi because large Republican wins in recent years led the party to direct resources elsewhere. In 2020, Democrats backed Mike Espy, a former U.S. secretary of agriculture whom they believed had captured momentum, but he lost to Hyde-Smith by a wide margin.
Colom told the outlet that national Democrats are “conditioned not to care about Mississippi”. He said: “To me, you can’t be a party that cares about working people if you don’t care about working rural people in Mississippi who are struggling.”