Democrat Scott Colom is leading Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,138 votes in the race for a US Senate seat in Mississippi, with approximately 96% of ballots counted. The outcome could be determined by ballots that have yet to be processed.
According to Associated Press (AP) figures on Wednesday evening, local time, Colom had secured 464,926 votes, or 49%, while Hyde-Smith had received 463,788 votes, or 48.9%. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins received approximately 2.1% of the vote. AP has not yet declared a winner.
The race remained exceptionally close throughout election night. Hyde-Smith led for most of the evening; however, by Wednesday morning, Colom had moved ahead by just 43 votes out of more than 925,000 counted, according to local television station WLBT. His lead widened throughout the day as additional ballots were counted.
Affidavit Ballots Could Determine the Outcome
The result now depends on ballots that have yet to be counted, specifically so-called “affidavit ballots”. These are provisional votes cast by voters whose eligibility to vote is in question — for example, because they lack valid photo identification or have reported to the wrong polling station.
Colom’s campaign estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 such ballots remain. According to NBC News, voters who cast these ballots have until Tuesday to submit the required documentation, among other things, to ensure their votes are counted.
Since this is a general election, there will be no runoff. The candidate who receives the most votes will win the Senate seat.
On Tuesday evening, Hyde-Smith effectively declared victory in front of her supporters.
“I assure you that I will continue to be your senator,” she said.
Her campaign later stated that it remained confident that, once every legally cast ballot had been fully and accurately counted, Mississippi voters would re-elect Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Colom said his campaign had spent months preparing to monitor the post-election vote count.
“We have an army of lawyers. We have local attorneys everyone is engaged to make sure the process is conducted in accordance with the law,” Colom said, according to WLBT.
Mississippi is one of the strongest Republican strongholds in the United States.
In 2024, Donald Trump carried the state by nearly 23 percentage points, while Republican Senator Roger Wicker won by a margin of more than 25 points. Ahead of the election, nearly all election analysts rated the race as a likely or safe Republican victory.
If he maintains his lead, Colom, a district attorney from northern Mississippi, would become the first Democrat from the state elected to the US Senate since John Stennis in 1982.
