Mississippi Senate Race Still Uncalled as Colom Holds Narrow Lead Over Hyde-Smith
Two days after polls closed in the 2026 midterms, Mississippi’s Senate race is still too close to call, with Democratic challenger Scott Colom holding a slender lead over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and thousands of ballots still to be counted.
The Associated Press tally on Thursday showed Colom on 466,775 votes to Hyde-Smith’s 464,962, a margin of about 1,800 votes out of more than 950,000 cast, with nearly all precincts reporting and roughly 96 per cent of the expected vote counted. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins held about 2.1 per cent of the vote, a share far larger than the gap between the two frontrunners.
The lead has swung repeatedly since election night. Early on Wednesday, Colom was ahead by just 43 votes. By Wednesday evening the margin had grown to 1,138 votes, and it widened further on Thursday as later batches were added. The Associated Press has not called the race, and neither candidate has conceded.
Thousands of ballots still to count
What happens next depends on the ballots that have not yet been tallied. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said about 3,600 mail-in absentee ballots were still outstanding, along with an unknown number of affidavit ballots cast by voters whose eligibility had to be checked.
“There are approximately 3,600 outstanding absentee-by-mail ballots that must be received within five business days and an unknown number of affidavit ballots that will be processed within the 10-day window counties have to certify their results,” Watson said in an update reported by Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
Mail ballots postmarked by election day count if they arrive by 5pm on Tuesday, November 10. Counties have until November 13 to certify their results, according to ABC News.
Hyde-Smith’s campaign has said it expects to prevail once every legally cast vote is counted. Hyde-Smith declared victory on Tuesday night, before the count was complete, according to WLBT in Jackson.
No recount law in Mississippi
The narrow margin would trigger an automatic recount in many states. Mississippi has no such law. There is no automatic recount for a Senate race, and no routine way for a candidate to request one. A recount would require a court order, and state law provides no process to contest a Senate general election in the state legislature, according to election law experts cited by NBC News.
Mississippi also has no run-off for federal general elections, so whichever candidate finishes ahead takes the seat, however small the margin.
If Colom holds on, it would be the Democrats’ first Senate victory in Mississippi since 1982, and a remarkable upset in a state that has voted Republican in every Senate contest for more than four decades. Colom, a former federal prosecutor, has history with his opponent: Hyde-Smith blocked his nomination to a federal judgeship in 2023 by withholding her approval under the Senate’s blue-slip custom.
The wider Senate picture
The Mississippi result is one of two Senate races still undecided. Democrats and the independents who caucus with them have already secured at least 54 Senate seats in the midterms, completing their sweep of Congress. If they also win Mississippi and Alaska, where former Democratic Representative Mary Peltola is narrowly ahead of Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in first-choice votes, they would reach 56 seats.
Alaska’s next scheduled release of ballot counts is November 10, the same day Mississippi’s mail-ballot deadline falls, meaning both races could remain unresolved into next week.
For now, Mississippi’s outcome rests on a few thousand envelopes still moving through the postal system and on affidavit ballots awaiting verification, in a contest separated by fewer than two votes in every thousand cast.
