Democrat Colom Extends Lead to 1,138 Votes in Surprisingly Tight Mississippi Senate Race

Democrat Scott Colom has moved ahead of Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in the race for a United States Senate seat in Mississippi. With 96 percent of votes counted by Wednesday evening, Colom was leading by 1,138 votes.

The race is still far from decided, however, with about 50,000 ballots still to be counted, according to the report.

Mississippi has not elected a Democratic candidate to the upper chamber in more than 40 years, which makes such a tight contest in the deeply conservative state highly unusual.

Hyde-Smith, the first woman to represent Mississippi in the US Congress, was elected in 2018 and has been endorsed by Donald Trump. The president won the state by more than 22 points in 2024.

Hyde-Smith led the race early on with about 30 percent of votes counted, but as more ballots were processed Colom started to gain a small edge over his opponent. As of Wednesday morning, Colom led with just a few dozen votes.

If Colom wins the race, he would be the first Black US senator elected in Mississippi since 1875.

Mississippi does not have automatic recounts for tight races or allow candidates to request recounts. The state also allows mail-in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days later.

Julie Wronski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Mississippi, said that because the difference between the two candidates is so narrow, every single vote received in any capacity will have to be counted. She said the race is very likely not to be called until at least 10 November.

On the campaign trail, Colom, a district attorney, focused his message on his Christian faith and plans to address economic concerns. He took aim at Trump's policies including the war in Iran and the rising cost of living in the US.

Wronski said Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to the role in 2018 to fill a vacancy, ran a mostly lacklustre campaign, relying on the state's reliably conservative base to deliver, and that the lack of public appearances was quite striking.

Trump campaigned alongside Hyde-Smith last month, saying he was there because Cindy was doing great, but that he could not take a chance.

Mississippi is home to the largest percentage of African Americans in the US, at nearly 40 percent, a group that overwhelmingly votes Democratic and reportedly showed up in large numbers this election.

Charles Taylor, director of the NAACP's Mississippi branch, told the BBC his organisation saw a huge swell in Black voter participation leading into Election Day, with long lines for absentee voting and long lines in person on the day itself.

Colom told the Washington Post in October that Democrats had not typically done well in Mississippi because large wins from Republicans in recent years led them to direct resources elsewhere. In 2020, Democrats threw their support behind Mike Espy, a former US secretary of agriculture, but he lost to Hyde-Smith by a wide margin.

National Democrats are conditioned not to care about Mississippi, Colom told the outlet, adding that a party that cares about working people cannot ignore working rural people in Mississippi who are struggling.

The race comes as Democrats won control over both chambers of Congress, scoring victories in deep red states such as South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, which had not elected Democratic senators in decades. The Democratic Party had sent extra funding to the Mississippi race in recent weeks, seeing an unexpected opportunity to flip the seat.