Democratic challenger Scott Colom expanded his lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to 1,138 votes in the uncalled Mississippi Senate race on Wednesday evening, setting up a multi-day legal and ballot-curing battle over thousands of outstanding mail and provisional ballots.
In unofficial returns updated Wednesday evening, the Mississippi Free Press reported Colom ahead with 464,926 votes (49.0%) to Hyde-Smith’s 463,788 votes (48.9%) with about 96% of the expected vote counted. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins held 19,934 votes (2.1%), a total far larger than the margin separating the two frontrunners. Earlier Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press tally cited by NBC News had shown Colom leading by 65 votes, 462,857 to 462,792, after overnight counts initially put the Democrat ahead by 43 votes.
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Wednesday afternoon that 70 of Mississippi’s 82 counties had uploaded unofficial results, leaving 12 counties still outstanding, along with uncounted ballots in Democratic-leaning Hinds County. In an official election update reported by Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Watson said, “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,” while earlier data from his office showed around 6,000 mail ballots distributed as of Monday had not yet been returned.
Deadlines for Mississippi election results and provisional ballots
Because the margin between Colom and Hyde-Smith is smaller than the pool of uncounted ballots, the outcome of the Mississippi election results hinges on two categories of remaining votes:
- Mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day (Nov. 3), which must arrive at local election offices within five business days, by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, to be counted.
- Provisional “affidavit” ballots cast by voters who lacked acceptable photo ID at the polls or whose names did not appear on precinct voter rolls. Under Mississippi law, affidavit ballots are counted if the voter was previously registered in the precinct, both the voter and the poll manager signed the affidavit envelope, and a voter who lacked ID presents acceptable photo identification at their county circuit clerk’s office by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10.
Mikell Bolden, executive director of the Mississippi Democratic Party, told NBC News that the party’s election protection hotline received roughly 2,000 calls on Tuesday from across the state. Many callers said they were certain they were registered to vote, were told their names were not on the precinct rolls, and could not verify their status online because the secretary of state’s website had crashed.
“Everything is on the line right now for this state,” Bolden said. The state party, the Colom campaign and national Democrats launched phone calls, text messages and robocalls Wednesday to reach affected voters and make sure they cure their affidavit ballots or verify their ID before Tuesday’s deadline.
National legal teams deploy to Mississippi
Both parties are preparing for a prolonged post-election fight. Staffers from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Elias Law Group arrived in Mississippi on Wednesday to lead the Democratic ballot-monitoring and legal effort, according to NBC News.
Speaking at a Wednesday morning news conference in Jackson, Colom, who is the 16th Circuit District Attorney, said his team had anticipated a tight finish. “We’re prepared to litigate, though we were prepared for this for months. We have an army of lawyers. We have local lawyers. We have everybody involved to make sure the process is followed according to the law.”
Marc E. Elias, chair of the Elias Law Group, wrote on X on Wednesday, “Scott Colom is going to be the next Senator from Mississippi. I am proud that Elias Law Group is leading the legal effort to ensure that happens.”
Republicans also signaled they are ready for a legal contest. Hyde-Smith campaign manager Jake Monssen said in a Wednesday statement that the campaign is “closely monitoring the remaining count” and remains confident the incumbent senator will prevail. Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told NBC News, “As the democratic process continues to play out, we are committed to ensuring that every single lawful ballot is accurately counted and the voice of all Mississippians is heard.”
Pinkins, the Independent candidate whose nearly 20,000 votes surpassed the gap between the two major-party nominees, welcomed the tight margin on Wednesday, saying, “I’m happy we drew votes from Cindy Hyde-Smith … now there’s a fight, and he’s in the lead and I hope [Scott Colom] wins”.
Why Mississippi law leaves no path for a statewide recount
Unlike most states, Mississippi has no statutory mechanism for an automatic or candidate-requested recount, and state law provides no process to contest a U.S. Senate general election in the state Legislature, University of Mississippi election law professor Ben Griffith told NBC News.
Instead, trailing candidates can only challenge results county by county by filing notices with individual county clerks to examine the contents of each county’s ballot boxes. With 82 counties across the state and only nine days remaining before county election officials must transmit certified results to the secretary of state on Friday, Nov. 13, Griffith said “that’s beyond the scope of feasibility,” ahead of the Dec. 3 state certification deadline.
While Democrats have already secured a U.S. Senate majority in the 2026 midterms after flipping Republican seats in states including Texas and South Carolina, a win in Mississippi would be their deepest pickup in a red state. If Colom’s lead holds, he would become Mississippi’s first Democratic U.S. senator since John C. Stennis won his final term in 1982 and the state’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction-era Sen. Blanche K. Bruce left office in 1881. The race also carries personal history between the two candidates: in April 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked President Joe Biden’s nomination of Colom to serve as a federal judge for the Northern District of Mississippi by withholding her Senate Judiciary Committee “blue slip” approval.