Major Takeaways

• Affidavit ballots could decide the Mississippi Senate race, where Scott Colom leads by 1,138 votes.
• Thousands of voters learned at the polls that the state had moved them to inactive status.
• Faulty commercial data used to clean the rolls sits at the center of the dispute.
• Voters who lacked photo identification have until November 10 to protect their ballots.

The Mississippi Senate race may be decided by affidavit ballots.

Those are the ballots voters cast when something goes wrong at check in.

A name is missing from the poll book.

A registration shows as inactive.

An accepted photo identification is not on hand.

Thousands of Mississippi voters met that moment on Tuesday.

Now their ballots sit in review while a Senate seat hangs in the balance.

Affidavit Ballots Move to the Center of the Mississippi Senate Race

The count itself has barely moved since Wednesday evening.

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.

About 96 percent of the expected vote has been counted.

Our Thursday morning report on the 1,138 vote lead laid out those numbers.

The open question is no longer the counted vote.

The open question is the uncounted vote.

The Colom campaign puts the affidavit ballots still pending at roughly 15,000.

State officials have not confirmed a total number.

Even a fraction of that pool dwarfs a 1,138 vote margin.

How So Many Voters Landed on the Inactive List

This cycle, the state used commercial credit data for the first time.

The Secretary of State office contracted with Experian to help clean the voter rolls.

The data was sent to counties, and election commissioners updated their lists from it.

Thousands of eligible voters were moved to inactive status in the months before Election Day.

An analysis of state data shows the scale in the largest counties.

More than 15,000 people in DeSoto County were removed as active voters.

That shift happened between the primary and the general election.

Jackson County shows 14,063 inactive voters.

Harrison County on the Gulf Coast shows 28,921.

Many of those voters discovered the change only when they reached the polls.

One Harrison County voter said the discovery blew him away.

People in line beside him had voted at the same place for decades.

One man said he had been voting there for 30 years.

The voter waited an hour and 15 minutes with dozens of others.

He cast an affidavit ballot and later found it still marked unprocessed.

For voters across Mississippi, a routine check in became a test of patience.

State Officials Defend the Purge of the Rolls

Secretary of State Michael Watson acknowledged the confusion on Election Day.

He defended the inactivations as a cornerstone of election integrity.

Watson said his office sends data to the counties for verification.

He said affidavit voting exists to catch errors like these.

He called the extra few minutes for those voters well worth it.

Elections experts strongly disagree with that framing.

Thessalia Merivaki researches elections at Washington State University.

She said some of the data are simply not reliable.

Eligible voters were wrongly made inactive, she said.

The mail alert meant to warn them went to the wrong address.

The faulty data caused both the error and the missed warning.

“It is such a close election where literally every vote counts,” Merivaki said.

“These affidavits are gonna really make or break who wins this election.”

Why Black Mississippi Voters Feel This Fight Most

Mississippi has the largest Black electorate share of any state, at about 35 percent.

Black voters made up about 30 percent of voters in this race.

Exit polling shows nearly all of them backed Colom.

The NAACP opened 11 voter registration sites across the state this year.

Those sites registered more than 17,000 voters.

“Mississippians showed up and shocked the nation,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Wednesday.

That turnout now runs through a paperwork review.

Every affidavit ballot represents a person who showed up to vote.

Many did everything right for years at the same polling place.

Their reward was a longer line and a ballot in limbo.

Black Mississippians know this pattern from a long and hard history.

Generations fought poll taxes, tests and purges for the right to be counted.

A database error should never carry that same power.

If Colom holds on, he becomes the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.

He would also be the first Democrat to win this seat since 1982.

Our earlier coverage of the 43 vote deadlock traced how close this race has run.

Both Campaigns Prepare for a Legal Showdown

Neither campaign is standing down while counties review ballots.

Colom sounded confident at his Wednesday news conference in Jackson.

“Once the process plays out, we are gonna win,” Colom said.

He credited historic turnout across Mississippi for his position.

The Hyde Smith campaign says it is closely monitoring the outstanding ballots.

Manager Jake Monssen said the team remains confident of victory.

He said a full and accurate count will show Hyde Smith reelected.

Several counties have already begun reviewing affidavit ballots.

Advocates expect early answers may not arrive until next week.

Each ballot decision can be challenged in court by either side.

That is where a long count can turn into a longer fight.

What Happens Next and What Voters Should Do

Some affidavit voters need to take one more step.

A voter who lacked photo identification must show it to the circuit clerk.

That deadline is November 10, five business days after Election Day.

Advocates say voters made inactive by bad data should need no extra steps.

Their eligibility should be verified from the record itself.

Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day also remain in play.

About 3,600 of those ballots were still outstanding this week.

They count if they arrive within the same five business day window.

Counties must certify their results by November 13.

The state then declares the final results on December 3.

Mississippi has no recount law, automatic or requested.

A court order or the United States Senate itself would have to step in.

Follow the count as it develops on our election tracker.

For now, the voters in the affidavit pile hold the future of this seat.

Their ballots were cast in good faith on Tuesday.

Mississippi owes them a count that honors that faith.

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.

Major Takeaways

• Kirk Franklin released I Am What I Am on October 30, 2026.
• It is his 14th solo album and his first double album.
• Guests include GloRilla, Davido, Jelly Roll and Tobe Nwigwe.
• This Time gave Franklin his 10th No. 1 gospel song.

Kirk Franklin has spent three decades refusing to stay in one lane.

On October 30, the Texas gospel icon released I Am What I Am.

The project is his 14th full length solo album.

It is also the first double album of his career.

At 56, the 20 time Grammy winner sounds settled and restless at once.

He honors the church that raised his sound.

He also invites the wider Black music world into the room.

Two Sides, One Kirk Franklin Story

The album holds 14 tracks split evenly in two.

Seven songs are new studio recordings.

Seven songs were recorded live with traditional gospel at the center.

The studio side leans into contemporary sounds and bold guests.

The live side returns to choir, band and congregation energy.

That balance is the whole point of the title.

Franklin presents both sides as one artist, not two competing acts.

Uptown Records released the album this fall.

Franklin partnered with the label earlier this year.

His own Fo Yo Soul Entertainment joined that partnership.

TRIBL Music Group is also part of the team.

The Guest List Tells The Story

The focus track is Hope In You with Davido.

The song runs three minutes and 27 seconds.

It places Afrobeats rhythm inside a gospel message of hope.

Free Me Tonight opens the studio side with Jelly Roll.

Franklin performs spoken word on that deeply personal track.

The song nods to In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins.

He reflects on flaws, public criticism and hard private moments.

He even addresses the 2021 controversy involving his son Kerrion.

A leaked recording of a painful family call shook his career then.

Franklin says creating the song felt cathartic.

It Gets Better brings in Houston artist Tobe Nwigwe.

Able, Do It Again and Stay complete the studio side.

The live side includes Someday and It Is Well.

Welcome In finds Franklin feeling forgotten by God at times.

It also gives thanks for the steadfast presence of God.

Holy and Beautiful Thorns keep the live worship moving.

Time closes the album with Tim Rogers.

This Time Already Made Chart History

This Time pairs Franklin with Memphis star GloRilla.

The song was released on September 25.

It debuted at No. 1 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart.

That chart was dated October 10.

It became the 10th No. 1 of the career of Franklin on that chart.

He is the first artist to reach double digits there.

The ranking began in 2005.

The track also interpolates Children Of The Sun by Mandrill.

Its chorus is built to be sung loud and together.

GloRilla brings upbeat bars and sharp, quotable wordplay.

Her appearance shows another side of her artistry.

Thank You For Everything tells a similar story of reach.

The song features Karen Clark Sheard of The Clark Sisters.

It has become the fastest growing record at gospel radio.

Franklin performed it at the 41st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards.

Its video made its broadcast debut on BET Her.

No More Apologies For Crossing Lines

Franklin says he is tired of defending his musical decisions.

He is not sorry for working with GloRilla on this album.

Critics have pointed to the explicit content in her catalog.

He is also not sorry for a recent prayer moment.

He prayed with Chris Brown and Usher before a concert.

That moment drew criticism on social media.

Franklin says the two stars simply asked him to pray.

So he did.

“We as believers sometimes become judge and jury,” Franklin said.

He warned that judgment can block the very people believers should reach.

“The decision to determine what needs to have the harder penance is where we find ourselves lost in how we miss reaching those that need us,” he said.

His work with rappers has raised questions for years.

He has recorded with Ye and with Lil Baby before.

“You start trying to play in other people’s sandboxes, it is going to come with scrutiny,” Franklin said.

He asks why mainstream stars give their time to gospel songs.

He believes a deeper pull brings them into the studio.

For more stories like this, see our Entertainment coverage at Urban City Podcast.

Why This Matters For Black Music

Gospel has always powered Black popular music in America.

Franklin made that connection impossible to ignore for new generations.

His 1997 hit Stomp Remix featured Salt of Salt N Pepa.

The song earned heavy rotation on radio and music video networks.

Its album reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200.

It also topped the R&B albums chart.

That was a first for a gospel project.

Classics like Melodies From Heaven still fill church services today.

Something About the Name Jesus remains a modern standard.

I Smile and Looking For You crossed over without losing faith.

Last year brought another major honor for Franklin.

The Recording Academy Black Music Collective gave him its icon award.

He shared that honor with Pharrell Williams and Brandy.

His story gives that honor real weight.

Franklin was adopted at age four after a tumultuous childhood.

He has spoken openly about dropping out and becoming a teen father.

Music and faith became his way forward.

That testimony still speaks to families across our community.

Read more about the culture behind the music in our Culture section.

You can also follow the latest headlines at Urban City Podcast.

A Calling, Not Just A Release

Franklin calls his art a lifelong calling, not just entertainment.

“The hole that I came from was so deep that whenever I’m around light, I never get tired of feeling the sunlight,” he said.

That line explains the joy listeners hear in this album.

It also explains the honesty running through its quieter songs.

The Bible, he notes, holds beautiful and painful stories side by side.

He believes gospel music can handle raw and unfiltered truth.

I Am What I Am asks listeners to bring their whole selves.

Church roots, rap energy, Afrobeats pulse and live worship all belong.

Thirty three years in, Franklin is still widening the table.

And this time, he is not asking permission to do it.

Major Takeaways

• Three Black women won Georgia top offices on Tuesday as voters elected a governor and an attorney general and a secretary of state.
• Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman ever elected governor of an American state with about 54 percent of the vote.
• Tanya Miller became the first woman elected attorney general in Georgia and Penny Brown Reynolds became the first Black person elected secretary of state.
• Women won at least eight statewide races in Georgia and Democrats won every statewide office that appeared on the ballot this year.

Black women lead Georgia into a new era after voters handed three of the most powerful offices in the state to Black women on Tuesday.

Keisha Lance Bottoms won the race for governor and Tanya Miller won the race for attorney general.

Penny Brown Reynolds won the race for secretary of state and completed a trio that no state has seen before.

The three victories landed in one night in a state where Black residents were once denied the vote itself.

Each woman will take office in January and each will hold real power over daily life in Georgia.

Black Women Lead Georgia at the Very Top

Bottoms defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson with 54.3 percent of the vote to 45.7 percent.

The margin passed 350,000 votes in late returns and the race was called on Tuesday night.

She will become the 84th governor of Georgia and the first Black woman ever elected governor of an American state.

Her win ends nearly 24 years of Republican control of the governor office in Georgia.

Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022 after years on the Atlanta City Council.

She later served in the White House as director of the Office of Public Engagement from 2022 to 2023.

On election night she told supporters that she will be a governor for all of Georgia.

She also spoke about her family roots and about generations who lived under slavery in Georgia.

She said she is standing on shoulders made of steel.

A Prosecutor Takes Charge of Georgia Law

Miller defeated Republican state Senator Brian Strickland with 55.5 percent of the vote to 44.5 percent.

She becomes the first woman ever elected attorney general in Georgia.

She also becomes only the second Black person to hold the job and the first Black woman in the role.

Miller served as a federal prosecutor and as a prosecutor in Fulton County before she entered politics.

She entered the Georgia House in 2023 and later chaired the House Democratic Caucus.

As attorney general she will serve as the chief legal officer for the state of Georgia.

She has named violent crime and human trafficking and gangs and consumer fraud as early priorities.

In her victory speech she pledged to protect people who have felt ignored by the system.

She told young girls and young people who have ever felt underestimated that they matter.

She said your voice matters and your vote matters and your future matters.

She added that there is room for you in the promise of Georgia.

The Woman Who Will Run Georgia Elections

Reynolds defeated Republican Tim Fleming with 55.6 percent of the vote in the secretary of state race.

Fleming is a two term state lawmaker who once served as deputy secretary of state.

Reynolds had built a lead of more than 11 points by late Tuesday night.

She becomes the first Black person ever elected secretary of state in Georgia.

She also becomes the first Black woman ever elected to the post in the state.

Reynolds served as a judge in Fulton County before her run for statewide office.

Her public service includes civil rights work and equal employment work at the Department of Agriculture.

She will succeed Brad Raffensperger and she will oversee elections and state records and business filings.

That role carries special weight in a state that has fought hard battles over voting access.

Reynolds said a vote should be a right and not a fight.

She said voters chose the person they saw as the most qualified for the job.

She said voters wanted somebody who loves and cares for the people and understands the value of that vote.

A Sweep That Went Far Beyond Three Races

Democrats won every statewide office that appeared on the ballot in Georgia on Tuesday.

Senator Jon Ossoff won a new term with 58.9 percent of the vote against Mike Collins.

Josh McLaurin won the lieutenant governor race with 55.9 percent of the vote.

Women won at least eight statewide races across the Georgia ballot on Tuesday night.

Katherine Juhan Arnold won the agriculture commissioner race and Nikki Porcher won the labor commissioner race.

Keisha Sean Waites won the insurance commissioner race and Shelia Edwards won a Public Service Commission seat.

Lydia Powell won the state school superintendent race against an incumbent who had served more than a decade.

Powell is set to become the first Black woman to lead Georgia public schools.

That system serves more than 1.7 million students across more than 180 school districts.

Women will now hold seven of the eight major statewide executive offices in Georgia.

Democrats also led in 13 state House districts now held by Republicans in early Wednesday counts.

A net gain of 10 seats would give Democrats the state House for the first time since 2004.

What This Power Can Mean for Black Georgia

These offices decide questions that shape Black life in Georgia every single day.

The governor sets the agenda on health care and schools and jobs and public safety.

Bottoms campaigned on expanding Medicaid and raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour.

She also backed higher pay for teachers and full funding for the state prekindergarten program.

The attorney general decides how the state fights fraud and crime and abuse of power.

The secretary of state decides how easy or how hard it is for people to cast a ballot.

Black voters cast about 30 percent of early votes in Georgia in a record midterm turnout.

On Tuesday that turnout helped turn a historic night into a governing majority.

At the Atlanta watch party one supporter waved a sign that read Black women lead Georgia.

Atlanta attorney Michelle Augustine said the sign means everything because Black women for sure lead Georgia.

Beverly Burks serves as mayor of Clarkston and she was the first Black woman elected to that role.

Burks said the title of first matters less than the work done each day for people who need support.

That work starts in January when Bottoms and Miller and Reynolds each take the oath.

Read more in our coverage of Bottoms and her historic win for governor and the Georgia redistricting fight that could follow her victory.

Follow every new development in our News coverage as the new Georgia leadership prepares to govern.

Major Takeaways

Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia with 54.31 percent of the vote and a margin above 360,000 votes.

A redistricting effort shelved in June could return while Governor Brian Kemp still holds office.

The southwest Georgia district of Representative Sanford Bishop is the seat analysts call most exposed.

Black representation in the House is already set to fall in the next Congress, even after a historic election night.

The Georgia redistricting fight may be the first real test of the Bottoms era, and it could start before she ever takes the oath.

Bottoms won the governor race on Tuesday in a contest that entered Election Day as a statistical tie in polling.

She beat Republican Rick Jackson by more than 360,000 votes.

Her win made history on several levels at once.

Bottoms is the first Black governor of Georgia and the first Black woman ever elected governor in America.

None of that guarantees her a quiet January.

A map fight shelved in June could return to the Capitol while Kemp still holds the pen.

1. Georgia Redistricting Was Already on the Table in June

State lawmakers called a special session in June to consider redrawing congressional and legislative maps.

The trigger was a Supreme Court decision in a Louisiana case that weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

That section had long barred maps that diluted the political power of minority voters.

Georgia was one of several Southern states where lawmakers moved within days of the ruling.

Democratic lawmakers and voting rights groups pushed back hard, including large protests inside the state Capitol.

Republican leaders then shelved the effort, at least for the moment.

House Speaker Jon Burns put the pause in writing to Kemp.

“Changes to Georgia’s maps should take place only when members of the General Assembly and citizens have been given ample opportunity to gather the facts, provide input, and engage in meaningful discussion,” Burns wrote.

“For this reason, we will not be taking up congressional or legislative redistricting for the 2028 election cycle during this special session.”

Read that last phrase closely.

The promise covered that special session, not every session to come.

Black voters powered the win that followed, casting about three in ten early votes in a record Georgia turnout.

2. Why the Clock Favors a Move Before January

Kemp remains governor until Bottoms is sworn in this January.

Any map passed in a special session before then needs only his signature to become law.

Waiting changes the math completely.

Bottoms could veto a map drawn to weaken Black voting power.

Democrats are also on track to take majority control of the Georgia House, which would close the door even further.

Andra Gillespie, a political scientist and professor at Emory University in Atlanta, saw this coming before Election Day.

“I would not be surprised if there is a special redistricting session,” Gillespie said.

“I think if Bottoms wins, there will absolutely be a special session that they’ll try to get done while Brian Kemp is still in office.”

3. The District Most at Risk Belongs to Sanford Bishop

The seat analysts call most exposed sits in the southwest corner of Georgia.

Representative Sanford Bishop won a new term on Tuesday with 60.87 percent of the vote in District 2.

His district remains one of the last Black majority congressional districts in the South still held by a Black member.

Split that district among the surrounding conservative districts, and it could fall into Republican hands.

The Atlanta area District 13 could also be targeted.

That seat was created in 2003 after the 2000 census and was held by the late Representative David Scott until his death earlier this year.

Democrat Jasmine Clark won it on Tuesday with 79.83 percent of the vote.

4. Atlanta Itself Limits How Far a New Map Can Go

Even Republicans who want new lines face a geography problem.

“Where they can credibly redistrict is limited,” Gillespie explained.

Metro Atlanta is simply too large and too Democratic to carve up the way smaller cities have been carved.

In Tennessee, lawmakers eliminated the only seat in the state held by a Democrat, a seat centered on majority Black Memphis.

Georgia has no single seat that holds all of its Black political power.

That power runs through Atlanta, Albany, Columbus, Macon, Augusta and Savannah, and through the rural Black Belt counties of the southwest.

5. The National Numbers Show What Is at Stake

Tuesday proved that Black voters can win under hard maps, and also that hard maps still cost seats.

Analysts count about 61 Black members in the next Congress, down from 65 in the current one.

Voting members in the House fall from about 60 to about 55, even as Black senators reach a record six and possibly seven.

In Louisiana, a seat once drawn as majority Black is now only about one quarter Black, with its election set for December 12.

In Alabama, Representative Shomari Figures won by nearly eight points after lawmakers cut the Black voting age population of his district from nearly 48 percent to about 40 percent.

In North Carolina, Representative Don Davis held a district that had been redrawn to flip.

The lesson cuts both ways.

Turnout saved some seats on Tuesday.

It should not have to save all of them every two years.

Federal courts will shape this fight as well, as the California ballots case at the Supreme Court showed this week.

6. What to Watch in the Weeks Ahead

The first signal will be a special session call from Kemp.

The second will be whether Burns treats his June letter as a lasting promise or as a pause.

There is also a real chance lawmakers decide to wait.

Gillespie noted that maps drawn to lock in Republican seats in Texas and Florida may have backfired in a Democratic sweep.

Some lawmakers may prefer to wait for the regular redistricting that follows the 2030 census, in 2031.

Voting rights groups in Georgia have already shown they can fill the Capitol in protest, as they did in June.

Follow the races still being counted on the UCP Election Tracker as this fight takes shape.

Bottoms won the vote count by more than 360,000.

The fight over whose votes count in Georgia is not finished, and Black Georgians intend to win that one too.

Major Takeaways

• Cleveland placed Deshaun Watson in concussion protocol on Wednesday after symptoms surfaced Monday night, two days after a helmet to helmet hit in Pittsburgh.
• Shedeur Sanders took the first team repetitions in practice Wednesday and is in line for his first start of the season Sunday at New Orleans.
• Watson has led the Browns to a surprise 5 and 3 start, and he has engineered a winning drive in the fourth quarter in all five victories.
• Sanders started the final seven games as a rookie last season and went 3 and 4, and a strong Sunday could reopen the quarterback debate in Cleveland.
• The Browns carry four quarterbacks on the roster, with Dillon Gabriel in line to back Sanders up and rookie Taylen Green behind him.

The Cleveland Browns spent three days believing their quarterback had escaped the hit.

On Wednesday morning, the timeline changed.

Cleveland placed Deshaun Watson in concussion protocol.

The move puts his status for Sunday in serious doubt.

It also puts Shedeur Sanders on the edge of his first start of the season.

Sanders took the first team repetitions when the Browns returned to practice Wednesday.

If Watson cannot clear the protocol in time, Sanders will lead a 5 and 3 team into New Orleans.

The game kicks off Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern at the Caesars Superdome.

For a player who has waited all season for one real chance, the moment is enormous.

1. The Hit in Pittsburgh and the Symptoms That Followed

The sequence began on the opening possession Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Watson took a helmet to helmet hit from Steelers safety Jaquan Brisker in the first quarter.

A spotter called down to the sideline during the game.

An unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant then administered a concussion evaluation.

Watson was cleared and returned on the next Cleveland series.

Sanders covered just four snaps while Watson was being checked.

Watson finished the game and threw for a season best 324 yards.

The punishment around him was relentless all afternoon.

Pittsburgh sacked him eight times and hit him 13 times in a 27 to 6 Cleveland loss.

Team medical staff evaluated Watson again after the game.

They evaluated him once more on Monday morning.

Both times he showed no symptoms and passed his evaluations.

Then the story shifted late on Monday.

Watson began experiencing concussion symptoms on Monday night.

He reported those symptoms to the medical staff on Tuesday morning.

The team said he was immediately placed in the concussion protocol.

Head coach Todd Monken never pulled Watson from the Pittsburgh game.

Monken said afterward that he never considered sitting his quarterback.

“Did not,” Monken said. “I want to see him play.”

“I want to see him continue to play and battle and he did.”

Watson now faces the five step return process the league requires.

The steps move from limited activity to full football activity and final clearance.

He must be cleared by the team physician and by an independent neurological consultant.

There is no official timetable for that process.

The median recovery for players in the protocol runs about nine days.

That math alone makes Sunday a long shot for Watson.

Cleveland has seen players clear the protocol within days this season.

Safety Grant Delpit, receiver KC Concepcion and tackle Tytus Howard all returned the following week.

Howard even played against Pittsburgh after missing practice until Saturday.

So the door is not fully closed on Watson.

It is simply a door Sanders is now preparing to walk through.

2. Watson Has Carried Cleveland Through a Surprise Start

Losing Watson, even for one week, is no small thing for Cleveland.

He had not played since 2024 before this fall.

He then won the starting job over Sanders during the preseason.

He has started all eight games since.

The Browns have ridden him to a 5 and 3 record that few predicted.

Watson has completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 1,806 yards.

He has thrown seven touchdowns against three interceptions.

His passer rating sits at 91.2.

The late game record is where his value really shows.

He has engineered a winning drive in the fourth quarter in all five Cleveland victories.

He has thrown for 300 yards in each of his last two games.

Those are his first 300 yard games in five years with the Browns.

The cost of that production has been heavy.

Watson has been sacked a league high 33 times this season.

That is ten more sacks than the next closest quarterback.

The Browns still trail Pittsburgh at 6 and 2 in the AFC North race.

Cincinnati sits at 5 and 2 as well.

With the margin that thin, every week at quarterback matters.

That is the pressure Sanders steps into on Sunday.

3. What Sanders Brings to His First Start of the Season

Sanders is not walking into this moment cold.

He started the final seven games of last season as a rookie.

He went 3 and 4 in that stretch.

He completed 56.6 percent of his passes for 1,400 yards.

He threw seven touchdowns and ten interceptions.

He also delivered three of the five Cleveland wins last season.

His first career start became a piece of team history.

On November 23, 2025, he threw for 209 yards in a 24 to 10 win at Las Vegas.

He was the first Cleveland quarterback to win his first career start since Eric Zeier in 1995.

He even reached the Pro Bowl as a replacement after the season.

This season has been a different kind of test.

Sanders lost a close preseason competition with Watson in August.

He has appeared in just two games since.

He played brief snaps against Carolina on September 27 and again in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

He has completed all three of his passes this season for two yards.

He stayed the second quarterback even after Dillon Gabriel returned from injured reserve.

That standing matters this week.

Gabriel is in line to serve as the backup on Sunday.

The Browns are one of the few teams carrying four quarterbacks on the active roster.

Rookie Taylen Green of Arkansas sits behind Gabriel and has yet to take a snap.

The matchup offers Sanders a real opening.

New Orleans enters at 2 and 5 on the season.

The Saints pass defense ranks among the bottom ten in the league.

A patient game plan could let Sanders settle in early.

A fast start could do much more than that.

It could reopen a quarterback conversation that Cleveland thought was settled in August.

4. A Path That Started at Jackson State

Black football fans have followed the Sanders story for years.

It started with a choice almost no top recruit would have made.

Sanders held offers from Alabama, LSU, Michigan and Florida State as a high school star.

He first committed to Florida Atlantic in the summer of 2020.

Then his father Deion Sanders took the head coaching job at Jackson State.

Shedeur flipped his commitment to the Tigers that November.

He chose an HBCU program and a SWAC stage over the usual power conference road.

The bet paid off right away.

As a true freshman in 2021, he set a school record by completing 65.9 percent of his passes.

He threw for 3,231 yards and 30 touchdowns.

Jackson State won its first SWAC championship since 2007.

Sanders won the Jerry Rice Award as the top freshman in the FCS.

He was the first HBCU player ever to receive that honor.

He threw for 3,752 yards and 40 touchdowns the next season.

His record across two seasons at Jackson State was 23 and 3.

He followed his father to Colorado for two more seasons.

He led the nation in completion percentage in 2024.

He won Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year that season.

Then came the famous slide through the 2025 draft.

A player once projected in the first round waited until the fifth round.

Cleveland traded up to take him with the 144th overall pick.

The Browns had already drafted Gabriel in the third round that same weekend.

That history is why Sunday carries weight far beyond one start.

Every start Sanders gets is another answer to the questions that followed him into the league.

His fans from Jackson to Boulder to Cleveland will be watching.

So will a front office that must decide what its future at quarterback looks like.

5. What Sunday in New Orleans Could Decide

The timing adds one more layer to the week.

The league trade deadline arrives Tuesday, November 10.

Sanders hired an agent earlier this season, and that move set off trade speculation.

Reports since then say Cleveland has no plans to move him before the deadline.

A start on Sunday gives the Browns fresh film either way.

It also gives Sanders the one thing backup quarterbacks rarely control.

It gives him the stage.

Watson could still clear the protocol and take the job back this week.

Cleveland will update his practice status as the week moves forward.

If he cannot go, the plan is already in motion.

Sanders is taking the first team work.

Gabriel is preparing as the backup.

The Browns are protecting a winning record in a tight division race.

Follow the rest of the week in our football coverage and across the full sports section, including the Monday night recap from Seattle.

Sunday afternoon in New Orleans, the waiting may finally end.

Shedeur Sanders has bet on himself at every stop of his career.

This weekend, Cleveland may bet on him too.

Major Takeaways

• Hakeem Jeffries is poised to become the first Black Speaker of the House in American history.
• Democrats won the House majority on Tuesday and cleared the 218 seats needed to control the chamber.
• The full House will vote for speaker on Jan. 3 when the new Congress convenes in Washington.
• As speaker Jeffries would stand second in line to the presidency behind the vice president.

Hakeem Jeffries is poised to become the first Black Speaker of the House after Democrats won control of the chamber on Tuesday night.

The result puts the gavel within reach for the Brooklyn lawmaker who already made history as his party leader.

For Black America the moment carries weight far beyond one title or one election night celebration.

A Majority That Put the Gavel Within Reach

Democrats passed the 218 seats needed for a House majority as results came in across the country.

In races already called Democrats had won 222 seats while Republicans had won 138 seats.

Another 75 districts had not yet been called in that count and counting continued on Wednesday.

Supporters at the Democratic watch party in Washington greeted Jeffries with chants of Speaker again and again.

Jeffries told the crowd that this is not a partisan moment and that this is a patriotic one.

He said House Democrats understand this is a change election and that voters want dramatic change.

He added that things are broken and that Congress must put the American people first.

From Brooklyn to the Front of the House

Jeffries was born and raised in Brooklyn and has represented parts of the borough in Congress since 2013.

His House tenure now spans nearly 14 years and began with a focus on criminal justice policy.

He rose as a top lieutenant under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi before he became minority leader.

He became House minority leader in 2022 after Democrats lost control of the chamber that year.

That step made him the first Black politician to lead either party in the House or Senate.

He now represents an area once held by Shirley Chisholm who broke barriers from Brooklyn before him.

He grew up as the son of an Air Force veteran and a social worker in New York.

He has said growing up during the crack epidemic shaped his sense of purpose and public service.

A Path Built on Law and Community Work

Jeffries earned a degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton before graduate study.

He earned a graduate degree in public policy at Georgetown and a law degree at New York University.

He graduated magna cum laude from law school and then worked as a corporate lawyer.

He served six years in the New York State Assembly before voters sent him to Congress.

In Albany he worked on rules for warrantless stop and frisk searches by city police officers.

In Washington he helped lead the push for the First Step Act during the first Trump administration.

That law reduced sentences for some drug crimes and won support from both major parties.

He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a leader in the House Democratic caucus.

The Map Fight That Failed to Stop This Moment

Republicans redrew House districts in several states in a bid to protect their narrow majority.

By most accounts that strategy backfired as Democrats held ground in district after targeted district.

Democrats held at least eight of the 15 districts targeted in the Republican map effort.

Democrats also flipped at least four seats away from Republicans in that same fight.

In Alabama Representative Shomari Figures held his seat despite a map drawn to favor Republicans.

In Texas Representative Vicente Gonzalez was winning his South Texas district by double digits early Wednesday.

Jeffries celebrated the outcome and said Democrats had crushed the Republican gerrymander across the land.

Read more in our coverage of Black candidates and sweeping midterm wins across the country.

What a Jeffries Speakership Means for Black America

No Black lawmaker has ever held the speaker gavel in the history of the House.

The speaker is the only leadership post in Congress named in the Constitution itself.

The role stands second in line to the presidency behind only the vice president.

Jeffries would take the office from Speaker Mike Johnson when the new Congress takes power.

He would become the first Democratic speaker since Pelosi and the face of a new generation.

His rise traces an arc that began in Reconstruction after the Civil War ended slavery.

Joseph Rainey became the first Black American elected to the House in 1870 during that era.

Rainey was also the first Black lawmaker to preside with the gavel over the House chamber.

More than 150 years later Jeffries stands ready to hold that gavel in his own right.

The Capitol where he would lead is a building that enslaved African Americans helped build.

That history makes the moment personal for families who still fight for full and fair representation.

See how this connects to Keisha Lance Bottoms and her historic win in Georgia on the same night.

The Work That Starts Before January

The full House will hold its floor vote for speaker when Congress convenes on Jan. 3.

Parties usually choose their leaders first during internal caucus votes held in November.

Representative Katherine Clark is expected to become majority leader in the new House leadership team.

Representative Pete Aguilar is expected to become majority whip alongside Clark and Jeffries.

Jeffries has promised a robust agenda for the first 100 days focused on lowering daily costs.

Soaring health care costs and gas and grocery prices sit at the top of that list.

The war in Iran and concerns about corruption also shaped the choice voters made Tuesday.

Jeffries has said Democrats will launch oversight and investigations to hold the administration accountable.

Holding a diverse and often divided caucus together will test his calm and collaborative style.

Black voters helped deliver this majority and will watch closely for results they can feel.

Lower costs and fairer justice and real oversight would turn a historic night into lasting change.

Follow the still close count in our Mississippi Senate race coverage as ballots keep coming in.

Septima Clark believed a pencil could change a nation. In her hands, reading lessons became voter registration drives.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called her the Mother of the Movement. That title was earned in classrooms few history books ever pictured.

As America counts votes from another election this week, her story explains who built the road to the ballot box. Teachers did, one adult student at a time.

Major Takeaways

• Septima Clark turned literacy lessons into a direct path to the ballot for Black Southerners blocked by rigged tests.
• Her citizenship schools began on Johns Island in 1957 and spread across the South, reaching more than 28000 adults by 1970.
• South Carolina fired her in 1956 for refusing to leave the NAACP, and she answered by training a generation of local teachers.
• King called her the Mother of the Movement, and her model still guides voter education work in Black communities today.

Born Into a World That Feared Her Mind

Septima Poinsette Clark was born on May 3, 1898 in Charleston, South Carolina. Her father Peter had been enslaved as a child.

Her mother Victoria worked as a laundrywoman and had been raised in Haiti. The household was poor in money and rich in discipline.

Clark graduated from the Avery Normal Institute in 1916 at age eighteen. She passed her teaching exam and started work right away.

Charleston law barred Black teachers from city classrooms, so she taught on Johns Island instead. Her first school was a single room serving Sea Island families.

Those families lived close to the land and far from power. Many adults could not read the very forms that decided their rights.

Clark never forgot that lesson. The distance between a person and the vote, she learned, was often just an unread page.

Forty Years in the Classroom and the Fight

Clark taught across South Carolina for four decades, including long stretches in Columbia and Charleston. She kept studying during every summer break.

She studied under W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University in 1937. She earned her bachelor degree from Benedict College in 1942.

She earned her master degree from Hampton Institute in 1946. Each credential sharpened a teacher already driven by service to her people.

She joined the Charleston branch of the NAACP and pushed for fair treatment. She backed a court fight that won equal pay for Black and white teachers in South Carolina.

That victory taught her a lasting truth about organizing. Patient pressure, applied together, could move even a stubborn Jim Crow system.

Then the system struck back at her directly. In 1956 South Carolina barred public employees from belonging to civil rights groups.

Clark refused to resign from the NAACP after forty years of teaching. The district let her contract lapse, and she lost her job and her pension path.

Fired at Fifty Eight and Just Getting Started

Many people would have called that ending a career. Clark treated it as a beginning, and she was already prepared for it.

During summer breaks she had run workshops at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. That school trained ordinary people to lead change at home.

Rosa Parks attended one of her Highlander workshops in 1955. Months later, Parks helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott that shook the nation.

After her firing, Highlander hired Clark full time as director of workshops. She now taught adults full time, with the whole South as her classroom.

Her core belief was simple and radical at once. Literacy and political power are linked, and neither one can be separated from the other.

So she taught reading alongside rights and duties. Students learned letters, then learned how to complete a voter registration form with confidence.

Johns Island and the First Citizenship School

The breakthrough came home to Johns Island in January 1957. Clark built the first citizenship school there with Esau Jenkins and Bernice Robinson.

Jenkins was a bus driver who taught passengers pieces of the state constitution on his route. Robinson, a beautician, became the first teacher.

Classes met in a back room behind a community store on the island. Fourteen adults showed up for the first class, ready to learn.

Lessons used the paper of daily life, from catalogs to money orders. Students practiced signing names, reading forms and understanding state rules.

The goal was concrete and measurable for every student. Pass the literacy test at the registrar office and claim a place on the voting rolls.

Within months, early students were registering to vote on Johns Island. Word traveled fast through churches, porches and family tables across the Lowcountry.

More schools followed on nearby islands and in Charleston. Each one trained local teachers, so the model could multiply without waiting on outsiders.

A Model That Moved Across the Entire South

In 1961 Tennessee officials forced Highlander to close its doors. The work was too important to die with one school, so it moved.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference adopted the program as its Citizenship Education Program. Clark became its director of education and teaching in Atlanta.

Week long training sessions prepared grassroots teachers from across the region. They learned to recruit students, judge reading levels and build lesson plans.

Those teachers went home and opened schools in beauty shops, churches and living rooms. Nearly nine hundred citizenship schools operated across the South.

More than 28000 adults passed through the schools between 1957 and 1970. Behind that number stand thousands of first time voters and new local leaders.

King praised her expert direction of the program in 1965. He called it the bulwark of the work his organization carried into small towns.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally outlawed literacy tests nationwide. Clark and her teachers had spent years proving why that law was needed.

Honor Came Late and It Came From Home

Clark retired from the SCLC in 1970 and kept teaching wherever she was called. Retirement, for her, simply meant unpaid service to the same mission.

Charleston voters elected her to the county school board in 1975. She now sat on the same kind of board that had pushed her out.

In 1976 the governor of South Carolina restored her teacher pension. The state admitted she had been unjustly terminated two full decades earlier.

President Jimmy Carter gave her a Living Legacy Award in 1979. Her second memoir, Ready from Within, won an American Book Award after its 1986 release.

Clark died on December 15, 1987 on Johns Island at age eighty nine. She was buried in Charleston, the city that once refused her a classroom.

A Charleston expressway now carries her name across the water. Drivers cross daily over the legacy of a teacher the city once tried to silence.

Why Septima Clark Matters on This Election Week

Every election rests on quiet work done long before ballots print. Clark represents the organizers who register, educate and encourage voters year after year.

Her schools treated dignity as the first lesson of citizenship. Adults who had been shamed for not reading were honored as students and leaders.

That approach still speaks to Black communities facing new voting hurdles today. Knowledge of rules, deadlines and rights remains a form of protection.

When new voters cast ballots this week in Mississippi and beyond, they walk a path her students cleared. The registrar office door stands open because teachers pushed it.

Read about Hiram Revels, who carried Black political power into the Senate in 1870. Then meet Fannie Lou Hamer, who carried that same fight into 1964.

Clark left a plain charge for every generation that follows her. Learn the system, teach your neighbors, and never surrender the vote she fought to claim.

Major Takeaways

• Scott Colom leads Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith by 43 votes, 462,821 to 462,778, and the Mississippi Senate race remains uncalled.
• Thousands of affidavit ballots still must be reviewed, and voters who cast one for lack of photo ID have five business days to show ID at a clerk office.
• Mississippi has no runoff in this federal race and no automatic recount, however close the final margin gets.
• If the lead holds, Colom would become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Blanche K. Bruce left office in 1881.

The Mississippi Senate race is the closest race in America this morning, and it is nowhere near finished.

Nearly a million Mississippians cast a ballot on Tuesday. By sunrise on Wednesday, just 43 votes separated the two leading candidates.

Democrat Scott Colom held 462,821 votes. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith held 462,778 votes.

Independent Ty Pinkins held 19,935 votes, about two percent. In a margin this small, every one of those votes now looks enormous.

43 Votes Decide Nothing Yet in the Mississippi Senate Race

No winner had been called as of Wednesday morning. The race stood at too early to call, with 1,733 of 1,736 precincts reporting.

That status matters. A call comes only when the trailing candidate can no longer close the gap, and nobody can honestly say that here.

Hyde Smith led for most of Tuesday night. Then late returns arrived from Hinds County, home to Jackson, and 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. Shortly after midnight, he moved ahead by 28 votes.

A few hours later, the lead stood at 43 votes. Both candidates sat at 48.9 percent of the vote.

This happened in a state President Donald Trump carried by 24 points in 2024. Forecasters had rated the seat as likely or safely Republican.

Former Gov. Haley Barbour noticed the shift early on Tuesday night. He said Trump was not winning by 24 points today.

What Is Still Left to Count on Wednesday

Counting did not end when the parties wound down. Hinds County paused its tally shortly after midnight and planned to resume on Wednesday morning.

Across the state sit thousands of affidavit ballots. The Colom campaign estimated there are 10,000 to 15,000 of them statewide.

That estimate comes from the campaign and has not been confirmed by the Secretary of State office. The Hyde Smith campaign says its own numbers show she will win.

An affidavit ballot is a provisional ballot. Voters cast one when eligibility is questioned at the polls.

That can happen when a voter shows up without acceptable photo ID. It can also happen when a voter arrives at the wrong precinct or appears as inactive in the poll book.

Those ballots are reviewed after Election Day. Each one must be verified before it can join the final tally.

If You Cast an Affidavit Ballot, the Clock Is Running

This part is personal for thousands of Mississippi voters. Some of those ballots will not count unless the voter takes one more step.

A voter who cast an affidavit ballot for lack of photo ID can still have it counted. The voter must show ID at the circuit clerk office within five business days.

Mail absentee ballots face a similar window. A ballot postmarked on or before Election Day must be received within five business days of November 3.

Voters who cast an affidavit ballot are entitled to written information at the polls. That information explains how to learn whether the vote was counted and, if not, the reason why.

In a race decided by dozens of votes, a trip to the clerk office is not paperwork. It could decide who represents Mississippi in Washington.

Readers can follow each update on our Election Tracker as counties finish their counts.

No Runoff and No Automatic Recount in Mississippi

Two state rules raise the stakes even higher. The first is that there is no runoff in this race.

In a federal general election, whoever finishes first wins the seat. No candidate must reach 50 percent to take office.

Pinkins and his roughly two percent cannot force a second round. The plurality winner wins, full stop.

The second rule concerns a recount. Mississippi has no automatic recount, however close the final margin gets.

A recount happens only if a court orders one. A candidate who wants one must ask a judge, not simply request it from election officials.

That makes the affidavit review the main road ahead. Legal challenges could follow once counties certify their totals.

She Blocked His Judgeship. Now He May Take Her Seat.

Colom was never supposed to be on this ballot. He was supposed to be a federal judge.

In October 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Support came from across party lines. Sen. Roger Wicker, Rep. Trent Kelly and former Govs. Phil Bryant and Haley Barbour all backed his consideration.

One signature was missing. In April 2023, Hyde Smith announced she would not return her blue slip, the home state senator sign off that district court nominees traditionally need before a hearing.

She said she simply could not support his nomination to serve on the federal bench in Mississippi for a lifetime. She cited his opposition to legislation on female athletes and support his first campaign for district attorney received from a political action committee.

The nomination died without a hearing. Months later, Colom announced he was running for the Senate, against her.

On Tuesday night in Flowood, Hyde Smith came close to declaring victory. She told supporters she assured them she would continue to be their senator, and she credited the other side for working hard.

Across the river in Jackson, Colom stopped short of claiming the win. He told his crowd he believed, deep down in his soul, that Mississippi was about to show the country that Mississippi matters.

His campaign manager Gerard Henderson put it plainly. This is not over, Henderson said, and the campaign will fight to the end.

The History Waiting on This Count

Colom, a Columbus native, has made history before. In 2015 he unseated a longtime district attorney to become the first Black district attorney of the 16th Circuit.

If his lead holds now, the history grows much larger. He would be the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Mississippi since John Stennis in 1982.

He would also become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Blanche K. Bruce. Bruce served during Reconstruction and left office in 1881.

Hyde Smith made history of her own. Appointed in 2018 to replace the retiring Thad Cochran, she became the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress, and she is now seeking a second full term.

The seat also carries daily power for Black Mississippi. Senators confirm judges who rule for decades, and they vote on health care, voting rights, farm aid and federal money for roads, schools and hospitals.

This morning roundup of the historic night sits alongside our earlier report on Black candidates making history across the country.

What Black Mississippi Watches Next

Control of the Senate has already been decided without this seat. Democrats won the majority on Tuesday night, so Mississippi will shape the margin, not the outcome.

That still matters. One more vote changes what a majority can pass, what it must negotiate and who holds leverage when a bill hangs by a thread.

For now, the honest answer is patience. Counties must finish reporting, clerks must review affidavit ballots and voters who need to show ID must do it inside five business days.

A winner likely will not be known for a few days. Anyone who tells you this race is settled today is guessing.

What is already settled is the statement Mississippi voters made. A district attorney from Columbus, written off in a state carried by 24 points two years ago, stands 43 votes from the United States Senate.

For continuing coverage of this count and the new Congress, visit our News section throughout the week.

Major Takeaways

• Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in American history, winning Georgia and clearing three barriers in a single night.
• Democrats won the House and the Senate on the same night, taking full control of Congress while President Donald Trump remains in the White House.
• Juliana Stratton becomes just the sixth Black woman to serve in the Senate, Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American woman elected to the chamber, and Abdul El-Sayed became its first Muslim member.
• Two Senate races are still counting. Mississippi sits 43 votes apart, and Alaska remains open.

THE HISTORY MAKERS OF ELECTION NIGHT

       

Swipe or tap a dot to see all seven winners. Keisha Lance Bottoms holds the center slide, the blue dot.

The image Americans will carry from this election is a Georgia one. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, won the race for governor of Georgia on Tuesday night.

With that win, Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in the history of the United States.

Georgia had never elected a Black governor. Georgia had never elected a woman governor. Bottoms cleared every one of those bars in a single night, beating Republican Rick Jackson in one of the most watched races in the country.

Urban City Podcast spent the fall documenting heavy Black turnout across Georgia, and Tuesday showed what that turnout can build. The state at the center of the modern voting rights fight now sends a Black woman to its highest office.

Her win stood at the front of a night that rewrote the map. Congress changed hands, Senate seats flipped across the country, and barrier after barrier fell in state after state.

A Night of Firsts Across the Country

In Illinois, Juliana Stratton won the open Senate seat, beating Republican Don Tracy.

Stratton has served as lieutenant governor of Illinois since 2019 under Governor JB Pritzker. She succeeds Dick Durbin, who held the seat since 1997.

When the new term begins on January 3, 2027, Stratton becomes just the sixth Black woman to serve in the Senate. Two Black women reached the summit of American politics on the same night, one running a state and one joining the chamber that confirms judges and cabinet secretaries.

In Florida, Congressman Byron Donalds beat David Jolly and became the first Black governor in Florida history. Donalds is a Republican, and his win stands on its facts. On a night his party lost Congress, Florida voters made history with him.

In Nevada, Attorney General Aaron Ford won the race for governor in the early morning hours, becoming the first Black governor in Nevada history.

In Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan won the open Senate seat, beating Michele Tafoya. Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, became the first Native American woman elected to the United States Senate.

In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed beat former congressman Mike Rogers to keep the seat of retiring Senator Gary Peters in Democratic hands. El-Sayed, a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants, becomes the first Muslim to serve in the United States Senate.

In Mississippi, Congressman Bennie Thompson won reelection in the 2nd District, a seat he has held since 1993.

Congress Changed Hands Overnight

The partisan story matched the history. Republicans went into Tuesday holding the Senate 53 to 47, the House, and the White House.

By Wednesday morning, Democrats had flipped at least seven Senate seats and taken the House. One party now runs both chambers of Congress. The other party runs the White House.

With two races still counting, the new Senate stands at 54 Democrats and 44 Republicans. The new Congress takes office in January, and the new Senate term begins on January 3, 2027.

The Senate Map and the Races Still Counting

The Senate map tells the story of the night. Democrats flipped seats in North Carolina with Roy Cooper, Texas with James Talarico, Kansas with Adam Hamilton, Iowa with Josh Turek, Ohio with Sherrod Brown, Maine with Troy Jackson, and South Carolina with Annie Andrews.

The Maine result unseated Senator Susan Collins, who had held the seat since 1997. Democrats defended their ground, with wins for Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, and Mark Warner in Virginia.

Two races remain unfinished. In Mississippi, Scott Colom leads Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 43 votes, 462,821 to 462,778, with independent Ty Pinkins at 19,935 and 1,733 of 1,736 precincts reporting.

Sit with that number for a moment. A Black challenger in Mississippi holds a 43 vote lead over a sitting senator, in a state where Black voters were once beaten and killed for trying to cast a ballot.

The Mississippi race is still counting. Remaining absentee and affidavit ballots will shape the finish, and a margin this thin points toward a recount fight in the days ahead.

In Alaska, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan leads Democrat Mary Peltola by 0.8 points, with about 72 percent counted, and that race is still counting.

Urban City Podcast tracked these races all night on our Election Tracker, where the final board stays up.

What the Country Looks Like Moving Forward

So what does America look like now? Start with the machinery. President Donald Trump remains in the White House. Democrats now control both chambers of Congress.

That split sets the terms for the next two years. Congress writes the budgets and holds the power to investigate. The president holds the veto pen and runs the executive branch.

Every spending bill and every policy fight now runs through that divide. Democrats can pass bills in both chambers, but a bill becomes law only with the signature of the president, or two thirds of both chambers voting to beat a veto.

The Senate also confirms judges and cabinet officials. A Democratic Senate changes who gets confirmed for the rest of this presidential term.

For Black communities, the fights ahead are concrete. Bills on voting rights, health care, federal workers, and education that could not get a vote before can now move through both chambers. Getting them past a veto is a different fight, and that fight starts in January.

The representation story may outlast the policy fights. Black girls in Georgia watched one of their own win the office of governor for the first time in American history.

Native girls in Minnesota watched a citizen of the White Earth Nation win a Senate seat. Young people in Michigan watched a man named Abdul El-Sayed win a Senate race.

Representation alone does not write a law. But it changes who sits in the room when laws get written, and it changes what young people believe is possible for them.

Read the full picture in our roundup of the Senate winners and our report on the history makers from this morning.

The counting continues in Mississippi and Alaska. The new Congress arrives in January. And the country waking up today looks a little more like all of the people who live in it.