8 min read
The Mississippi Senate race stopped being a quiet contest this week.
National money is now flooding into the state from both parties.
Republican leaders moved Thursday to defend Senator Cindy Hyde Smith with new advertising.
Their top Senate super PAC opened its wallet in a state the party once treated as safe.
Democrat Scott Colom has turned a long shot bid into a single digit race.
With eleven days left before Election Day, Mississippi is suddenly a national battlefield.
Major Takeaways
- Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican super PAC for Senate races, made an initial advertising reservation of about 160,000 dollars in Mississippi on Thursday, with more money expected.
- The planned Republican buy has been described as more than 1 million dollars, answering a 1.2 million dollar Democratic television buy for Colom.
- Advertising in the race will reach nearly 8 million dollars between the start of October and Election Day, after less than 5 million dollars across the first nine months of 2026.
- Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned with Colom in Columbus on Thursday, and President Donald Trump will rally for Hyde Smith in Corinth on Monday.
- Public polls show Hyde Smith ahead by single digits, and one survey firm has admitted that a poll showing her up by four points was fabricated.
1. National Money Pours Into The Mississippi Senate Race
The clearest sign of a tightening race is always the money.
Senate Leadership Fund had stayed out of Mississippi all year.
Party leaders had warned that incumbents who failed to prepare should not expect a rescue.
Senator Tim Scott, who leads the Republican Senate campaign effort, said as recently as last month that he did not plan to put money into Mississippi.
That changed on Thursday.
The group logged an initial reservation of about 160,000 dollars, and more spending is expected behind it.
People familiar with the plan describe the full buy as reaching into the low seven figures.
The move answered real pressure from the other side.
Senate Democrats announced a television reservation of about 1.2 million dollars for Colom this week.
Another Democratic aligned group has announced plans to spend 2.1 million dollars in the state.
The scale of the final stretch tells the story by itself.
From January through September, the race drew less than 5 million dollars in advertising.
From the start of October through Election Day, it will draw nearly 8 million dollars.
Democrats are outspending Republicans about 5 million dollars to 2.7 million dollars in that closing window.
Mississippi voters will feel that money every time they turn on a television.
Read our earlier report on how the Trump rally in Mississippi puts the Senate race in the spotlight.
2. Harris Brought The Fight To Columbus
The money followed the moment, and the moment came Thursday in Columbus.
Colom welcomed Harris to his hometown after Mississippi University for Women declined to host the event.
The rally moved to the Columbus High School gymnasium, and Colom turned the questions about the invitation into his answer.
He told the crowd that people asked him why he would bring the former vice president to Columbus.
“You know what I told them? Why not? Why not?” Colom said.
“Because this is the place that taught me the values that matter.”
Harris made the case in terms of power, not symbolism.
She reminded voters that she was only the second Black woman ever elected to the United States Senate.
“A Scott Colom as senator from Mississippi will be so powerful,” Harris said.
She described rooms where senators decide questions on Medicaid, Medicare, housing and education with no cameras present.
“When you have a voice like his in that room, just think about the impact that’s going to have on the decisions coming out of that room,” Harris said.
Colom also renewed his debate challenge, this time aimed at the president himself.
“We welcome him because I think it’s time to debate! I want to debate him!” Colom told the crowd.
“Cindy Hyde Smith won’t debate, so maybe he will, ’cause we got some questions!”
Photo: The White House, public domain.
3. The Polls Show A Race, And One Fake Survey
Public polling in Mississippi is thin, and both parties know it.
An August survey placed Hyde Smith six points ahead of Colom.
An April survey placed her only three points ahead.
Those are single digit margins in a state Trump carried by more than twenty points in 2024.
They help explain why national groups are spending like the seat is truly in play.
They also explain why voters should read every new number with care.
A firm called Wedgewood Polls has admitted fabricating a survey that showed Hyde Smith ahead by four points.
The firm called the surveys an experimental project meant to show how easily a fabricated polling firm could mislead the public.
The Colom campaign and Senate Democrats say no spending decisions were based on the fake figures.
Still, the admission is a warning for Black voters watching this race online.
An invented poll can travel fast, shape headlines and drain energy from real organizing.
The honest picture is simpler.
Hyde Smith leads, the race rates as likely Republican, and Colom remains the underdog.
But underdogs do not usually draw this much money, this late, in a state this red.
Photo: United States Senate, public domain.
4. Black Mississippi Is The Ground This Race Stands On
None of this math works without Black voters.
Black Americans make up about 38 percent of the population of Mississippi.
That share is closer to Georgia than to any other state in the Deep South.
It is the core of the case Colom has made to national leaders all year.
“Mississippi is next, there’s no doubt about that,” Colom said.
All four Black Democrats in the Senate have campaigned for him in recent weeks.
They have also pressed party insiders directly to send more resources into the state.
Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester credited his ground game for the moment.
“He has run a strong campaign focused on reaching out directly to voters and speaking to their concerns about the rising costs of gas and groceries,” Blunt Rochester said.
“That is why he is in the position he is in, and that is why Republicans are nervous,” she said.
“They are finally realizing what I have said from the beginning: Mississippi is the next Georgia.”
The campaign style matches the message.
Colom and his team have driven a food truck to college campuses, housing projects, music festivals and local gathering spots.
They blast music, hand out free tacos and meet voters where they already are.
“Our current senator does not campaign. She hasn’t done a town hall in six years,” Colom said.
“You can’t pay for gas with lies. You can’t buy groceries with lies.”
That cost of living message connects directly to fights Black families are watching across the South.
Read how Louisiana Black voters are fighting to save the last Black district in that state.
5. Confidence On One Side, History On The Other
The Hyde Smith campaign insists the ending is not in doubt.
“We are confident that Senator Hyde Smith will win on November 3rd,” campaign manager Jake Monssen said in a statement.
He pointed to her record on infrastructure, rural health care, judges, tax relief and border security.
History gives her side real reasons for confidence.
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.
Hyde Smith won her first full term in 2020 by ten points.
Yet she has also run behind Trump in this state before.
Trump won Mississippi by more than sixteen points that same year, six points better than her margin.
Republicans backing her are also defending incumbents in Kansas and South Carolina while spending heavily in Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska.
Every dollar now landing in Mississippi is a dollar pulled from that wider map.
On Monday, Trump himself will make the case at the Crossroads Arena in Corinth.
His visit, this flood of money and the Harris rally all point to the same conclusion.
Nobody in Washington is treating Mississippi as settled anymore.
Photo: formulanone via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
What This Means For Black Families
A Colom win would make him the first Black senator elected from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
It would add one more Black voice to a chamber that has only a handful.
Those voices vote on the price of food, the future of Medicaid and the funding of schools.
They vote on judges who will rule on voting rights long after this election ends.
That is why the closing argument in Mississippi is not really about the money.
The money is only proof that both parties now believe Black turnout can decide this seat.
Early voting and Election Day planning will matter more than any single advertisement.
Check your registration, make your plan and bring somebody with you.
Mississippi has the attention of the whole country for eleven more days.
What Black Mississippi does with that attention is the real story.
Follow more coverage in our News section as the race enters its final stretch.
