Mississippi Senate race hangs by 43 votes as Democrat seeks historic upset

Mississippi's U.S. Senate race remained too close to call early Wednesday, with Democratic prosecutor Scott Colom holding a lead of roughly 40 votes over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith out of nearly a million ballots cast — a margin thin enough that the outcome could still change as the last precincts and affidavit ballots are counted.

The contest, in a state no Democrat has carried in a Senate race since 1982, became one of the most closely watched down-ballot results of the night after returns from Hinds County and a string of majority-Black counties in the Delta pulled Colom even with, and then narrowly ahead of, Hyde-Smith in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A margin of dozens, not thousands

As of roughly 6 a.m. Eastern, with about 95.6 percent of the expected vote counted, unofficial returns showed Colom with 462,821 votes, or 48.9 percent, to Hyde-Smith's 462,778 votes, also 48.9 percent — a lead for Colom of just 43 votes, according to a count reported by WLOX, the NBC affiliate in Biloxi. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins drew about 19,935 votes, or 2.1 percent. The margin had been even tighter a few hours earlier: shortly after midnight, the Mississippi Free Press reported Colom ahead by just 28 votes, 462,779 to 462,751, with 97 percent of precincts in.

The race is a general election, not a primary, so there is no runoff regardless of how narrow the final margin is; the candidate with the most votes wins the seat outright. Both campaigns said late Tuesday that thousands of affidavit ballots remained to be counted statewide, and that some precincts — including in Hinds County, the state's most populous, which paused its tabulation overnight — had not finished reporting. Magnolia Tribune, a Jackson-based news outlet, reported that the full count, once affidavit and any remaining precinct ballots are added, could take up to five business days.

A seat Mississippi has not given up since the Reagan era

The closeness of the race alone would be notable in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris lost by roughly 23 points in 2024. But the political stakes go further. Mississippi last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1982, when John C. Stennis won what proved to be his final term; he left office in January 1989. If Colom's lead holds, Democrats would also gain their first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction — Blanche K. Bruce, who served from 1875 to 1881.

Hyde-Smith, appointed to the Senate in 2018 to fill the remainder of Thad Cochran's term and elected to a full term in 2020, was Mississippi's first woman elected to statewide or federal office. She leaned heavily on President Trump's support this fall, including a rally he held with her in Corinth on October 26, and her official Senate biography highlights her work on agriculture and appropriations committees. Colom, the elected district attorney for Mississippi's 16th Circuit Court District, entered the race after a prior federal judgeship nomination stalled; his campaign said it raised more money in its opening months than any Democratic Senate bid in state history.

Neither side has conceded

At separate election-night gatherings, neither candidate declared victory, but both signaled they expected to win once the count is finished.

"We're gonna win," Colom told supporters, according to WLOX.

Hyde-Smith told her own watch party that her campaign was "in a very good lead right now," while cautioning that not all votes had been counted and that she would not call the race that night. Outside groups aligned with both parties had poured money into the race in its final weeks, but as of Wednesday morning neither party's Senate campaign committee had issued a statement on the results.

What happens next

Election officials in Hinds and other outstanding counties were expected to resume counting affidavit and remaining precinct ballots Wednesday morning. Mississippi's Secretary of State's elections division will continue updating the statewide tally as counties complete their local canvasses ahead of certification. Given the margin, the race is likely to remain unresolved into Wednesday afternoon or beyond. A Colom victory would hand Senate Democrats a seat few in either party expected to be competitive at the start of the cycle; a Hyde-Smith win would keep both of Mississippi's Senate seats in Republican hands, as they have been for decades.