5 min read
Major Takeaways
- Scott Colom leads Cindy Hyde Smith by 1,138 votes on Thursday morning, and the Mississippi Senate race remains too early to call.
- The lead stood at just 43 votes on Wednesday morning before late county returns widened the gap on Wednesday evening.
- About 3,600 mail ballots remain outstanding, and affidavit voters who lacked photo ID have until November 10 to save their votes.
- Counties must certify results by November 13, and Mississippi law provides no automatic recount, however close the finish becomes.
The Mississippi Senate race is still too close to call on Thursday morning.
Scott Colom leads Cindy Hyde Smith by 1,138 votes.
The count barely moved overnight.
Thousands of ballots still hold the outcome in their hands.
The Numbers in the Mississippi Senate Race
Colom holds 464,926 votes, or 49.0 percent.
Hyde Smith holds 463,788 votes, or 48.9 percent.
Independent Ty Pinkins holds 19,934 votes, or 2.1 percent.
Precincts have reported in 1,733 of 1,736 locations across the state.
About 96 percent of the expected vote has been counted.
Colom moved ahead by 28 votes shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
By Wednesday morning, the lead stood at 43 votes, as our earlier report on the deadlocked race detailed.
By midday Wednesday, it had grown to 65 votes.
A late batch of county returns then pushed it to 1,138 on Wednesday evening.
That number has not changed since.
Black Voters Put Colom in Front
Hyde Smith led for most of election night.
Colom closed the gap when late returns arrived from Hinds County, home to Jackson.
Returns also rolled in from majority Black counties in the Delta and southwest Mississippi.
In Hinds County alone, Colom piled up 61,793 votes to 14,702 for Hyde Smith.
He won 87.3 percent of the vote in Claiborne County.
He won 87.1 percent in Jefferson County and 74.9 percent in Leflore County.
Colom also leads in DeSoto County, which backed Donald Trump by 24 points in 2024.
Hyde Smith ran strongest in Rankin County, with 61.7 percent.
She also led in Jackson County and Harrison County on the Gulf Coast.
For Black Mississippians, this count is personal.
Communities that fought for the ballot itself now watch their votes decide a Senate seat.
Every affidavit ballot under review comes from a real voter who showed up.
Thousands of Ballots Still Hold the Answer
Two kinds of ballots will decide this race.
The first kind is mail ballots sent by Election Day.
Secretary of State Michael Watson said about 3,600 mail ballots remain outstanding.
Those ballots count if they arrive within five business days, by November 10.
The second kind is affidavit ballots.
Voters cast them when a name is missing from the poll book.
Voters also cast them when they lack an accepted form of photo ID.
A voter who lacked photo ID must show it at the circuit clerk office by November 10.
The Colom campaign estimates 10,000 to 15,000 affidavit ballots statewide.
State officials have not confirmed that number.
In Warren County, workers planned to count 709 affidavit ballots on Thursday.
No Runoff and No Automatic Recount
Mississippi law leaves little room for a quick ending.
There is no runoff in this federal race.
The candidate with the most votes wins the seat, even below 50 percent.
There is also no automatic recount, however close the finish gets.
A recount can only come through a court order.
Counties must certify their results by November 13.
The Secretary of State then declares the statewide results by December 3.
National control of the Senate no longer rides on this race.
Democrats have already won the chamber, a sweep we tracked in our look at a historic night for Black candidates.
Mississippi will decide how large that majority becomes.
History Waits on the Final Count
If the lead holds, Colom makes history several ways at once.
He would be the first Black Mississippian elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.
He would be the first Democrat to win a Mississippi Senate race since John Stennis in 1982.
Colom, 43, has served since 2016 as district attorney for Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties.
He is a seventh generation Mississippian from Columbus.
Colom spoke to supporters with the race still wide open.
“I’m excited for the days to come,” he said.
“Deep down in my soul I believe we’re about to show the country Mississippi matters.”
Black voters in the Delta, in Jackson and on the Coast cast the votes being counted.
Their ballots will have the final word.
Read more on the changing face of Congress in our report on Hakeem Jeffries and the Speaker race.
