Mississippi Senate race separated by just 43 votes with 96% counted
The race remains undecided as thousands of mail and affidavit ballots are still being verified, and Mississippi has no automatic recount process.
- With more than 96% of the vote reported, Democrat Scott Colom holds a razor-thin 43-vote lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi's U.S. Senate race, according to NBC News projections.
- Colom, a district attorney in northeastern Mississippi, challenges Hyde-Smith, who has held the seat since her 2018 appointment in a state where Democrats have not won a Senate seat since 1982.
- Election officials are processing approximately 15,000 provisional "affidavit ballots" and roughly 3,600 mail-in votes that could determine the outcome, as Mississippi law provides no automatic recount mechanism for federal elections.
- Both campaigns are preparing for a potential legal showdown as county election boards verify outstanding ballots before Mississippi's November 13 certification deadline.
- A victory for Colom would make him Mississippi's first Democratic senator in over four decades and the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction-era Republican Blanche K. Bruce.
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290 Articles
Democrats could be close to a 55th seat in the Senate. Late Thursday, there was a one-tenth of a percentage point difference between the Democratic challenger and the incumbent Republican senator in the usually deeply conservative southern state of Mississippi.
Democrat locked in Deep South Senate stunner
One of the biggest nail-biters of the 2026 election isn't playing out in a purple state, but crimson Mississippi, where Democrat Scott Colom is trying to pull off a Magnolia State upset.The big picture: It's one of the most remarkable currents of Tuesday's blue wave. The race pitted Colom, a Democratic district attorney powered by grassroots clout, against incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a state Trump won by some 23 points in 2024.The b…
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