Three days after Election Day, Mississippi still does not know who will represent it in the U.S. Senate. Democrat Scott Colom holds a narrow lead over Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, and the Associated Press has not called the race. Colom, a district attorney, led by just 43 votes in the early hours of Wednesday, and later counts put his lead at 65 votes on Wednesday afternoon, at 1,138 votes on Wednesday evening, and at about 1,724 votes by Thursday afternoon, with a later count based on AP figures putting it near 1,800. Those numbers come from different counts taken at different times, so no single margin can be reported as final.
Why it matters
What is still uncounted could decide the seat. Secretary of State Michael Watson says about 3,600 absentee ballots sent by mail are still outstanding, and to be counted a mail ballot must have been postmarked by Election Day and must arrive within five business days, by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 10. An unknown number of affidavit ballots also remain, and Colom campaign estimates that 10,000 to 15,000 affidavit ballots are still uncounted, although that figure has not been confirmed independently. Counties have until November 13 to submit their certified results.
The race is harder to settle in Mississippi than in most states, because Mississippi law has no recount provision. There is no automatic recount and no process for a candidate to request one, and there is no runoff in a general election contest, so whoever finishes ahead takes the seat. That makes the remaining ballots decisive in a way they would not be elsewhere. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins won about 19,900 votes, or 2.1 percent of the total, far more than the gap between the two leaders, and his voters have become the most analysed group in the state.
What happens next
The closeness itself is a story, whatever the outcome. President Trump won Mississippi by 23 points two years ago, and Hyde-Smith led for most of election night before Colom closed the gap as late returns arrived from Hinds County and from majority Black counties in the Delta and Southwest Mississippi. In Hinds County, Colom had 61,793 votes to Hyde-Smith 14,702, and he also led in DeSoto County, which Trump won by 24 points in 2024. If Colom lead holds, he would be the first Democrat to win a United States Senate race in Mississippi since John Stennis in 1982.
For the Senate, the stakes are the size of the new Democratic majority, which already stands at at least 54 seats and could reach 56 if Mississippi and Alaska both break toward Democrats. For Mississippi voters, the stakes are simpler: a result they can trust. The counting will proceed at its own pace, and the responsible course is to wait for it rather than to declare a result that the ballots have not yet produced. The majority is already decided. This seat, and the margin that comes with it, is the last open question of the night.
