Scott Colom held a lead of about 2,500 ballots over Cindy Hyde-Smith as Mississippi’s US Senate race remained undecided a week after the midterm elections. The margin was less than 1%, leaving the state with one of the closest Senate counts in years and a result that still was not final as the week moved on.
That is why the race is drawing fresh attention now: state law sets Friday as the deadline to certify the results, and thousands of postal and affidavit ballots still have not been counted. Officials have said between 12,000 and 20,000 affidavit ballots were cast, and by Tuesday morning roughly 15,500 had been processed, keeping the final outcome within reach of the remaining ballots.
If Colom keeps the lead, he would become Mississippi’s first Democratic senator in nearly four decades and the Magnolia State’s first black senator in over 140 years. A Colom victory would also end a Republican winning streak in Mississippi that dates back to 1982, a run that has defined the state’s Senate politics for generations.
But the final count still has to survive the last stretch. Each party has sent teams of lawyers into Mississippi, and the uncounted postal and affidavit ballots remain the number that could still matter most. Affidavit ballots are the votes that were not accepted right away because of an issue such as missing ID, and voters are asked to resolve the problem by returning a provisional ballot.
That gives the race a narrow, procedural finish line as much as a political one. President Donald Trump won Mississippi in 2024 by over 22 points, which makes the closeness of this contest stand out even more, while students at Jackson State University told the they were watching closely and, in some cases, already backing Colom. Jamyria Dunn said, “I really feel like a change is what we need,” and added that seeing Mississippi “turn blue” would bring a light to her heart that people would not understand.
The next move belongs to the counting process, not the campaign. With Friday’s certification deadline approaching, Mississippi has to finish processing the remaining ballots and lock in a result that could reshape the state’s place in the US Senate.
