Mississippi Senate Race Hits Deadline Day as Democrat Scott Colom Leads Hyde-Smith by 2,536 Votes
JACKSON, Miss. — One week after Election Day, Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race remains uncalled, and Tuesday is the day the ballot windows close. Democrat Scott Colom leads Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,536 votes in the Associated Press count, with thousands of mail and affidavit ballots still to be resolved and two deadlines — both at 5 p.m. Central time — set to decide how many of them can still count.
No news organization has called the race. The Associated Press lists it as too early to call, with about 97 percent of the expected vote counted. What happens between now and Friday, when Mississippi’s 82 counties must submit their certified results, will decide whether Colom pulls off one of the biggest upsets of the 2026 midterms — or whether Hyde-Smith survives by the narrowest of margins.
Where the count stands
As of Monday, the Associated Press tally put Colom at 467,961 votes (49.08 percent) and Hyde-Smith at 465,425 (48.82 percent). The margin — 2,536 votes out of more than 953,000 cast — is about three-tenths of a percentage point, and it has moved in only one direction since Election Day.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the two candidates were separated by just 43 votes. By Thursday, Colom’s lead had grown to 1,138 votes. By Monday it stood at 2,536. The steady drift toward the challenger is why betting markets now give Colom an overwhelming edge: he was trading at 99 cents on Polymarket and 98.7 cents on Kalshi on Tuesday, implying a near-certain win, while Hyde-Smith traded at about 2 cents.
But the race is not over. The outstanding ballots number in the thousands, and they are large enough, in theory, to erase a 2,536-vote lead. The question is which ballots are left — and where they are.
What Tuesday’s deadlines decide
Tuesday, November 10, is the last day for two groups of ballots to be saved.
First, mail-in absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day must reach county circuit clerks’ offices by 5 p.m. Central time to be counted. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Monday that just over 2,700 such ballots were still outstanding. That number alone is larger than Colom’s lead.
Second, voters who cast affidavit ballots because they could not present an acceptable photo ID at the polls have until 5 p.m. Central time to show identification at their county circuit clerk’s office, or to complete an affidavit of religious objection. If they do, their votes count. If they do not, they do not.
Affidavit ballots are Mississippi’s version of provisional ballots. They are cast when a voter’s name does not appear on the poll book, or when the voter arrives without an acceptable photo ID, and they are reviewed by county election commissioners before they are counted. About 14,239 affidavit ballots had been processed by Monday, with roughly 77 percent accepted, according to the secretary of state’s office. Thousands more are still being reviewed, and no official statewide total of the ballots still out has been published.
Importantly, Tuesday’s deadline does not apply to every affidavit ballot. It covers only the relatively small number cast over a missing photo ID. Affidavit ballots cast for other reasons — a name missing from the rolls, for example — continue to be reviewed by county election commissions through the certification deadline on Friday.
Why the remaining ballots may favor Colom
The geography of the remaining count is the reason most analysts expect Colom’s lead to hold, and even to grow. Much of the still-unresolved counting is concentrated in counties around Jackson and along the Gulf Coast that have favored Colom, while Hyde-Smith’s strongest remaining ground is in a smaller number of Republican-leaning counties.
Rankin County, where Hyde-Smith leads by 61.7 percent to 36.1 percent, received about 1,667 affidavit ballots. Even if she won those ballots by her full county margin, she would net only about 499 votes, according to an analysis by the Mississippi Free Press. That is less than a fifth of the gap she needs to close.
The Colom campaign has estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 affidavit ballots remain uncounted statewide, a figure that has not been confirmed independently. Secretary of State Watson has put the range of affidavit ballots still out at roughly 12,000 to 20,000. Either way, the pool is several times larger than the current margin, which is why neither campaign is treating the race as settled.
How a race nobody expected to be close got here
Few forecasters rated Mississippi’s Senate race competitive before Election Day. Hyde-Smith, who has held the seat since 2018 and was seeking a second full term, was widely expected to win comfortably in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than four decades. Colom, a district attorney from Lowndes County, ran a campaign that drew national attention in its final weeks, including a viral advertisement and a late visit to the state by President Donald Trump on Hyde-Smith’s behalf.
Instead, the race turned into the closest contest left from the November 3 vote, and the only Senate race besides Alaska’s still uncalled a week later. Democrats won control of both chambers in the midterm elections, flipping at least seven Republican-held Senate seats, and a win in Mississippi would stretch their new Senate majority to 55 seats.
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The stakes are historic. Colom would be the first Democrat to win a Mississippi Senate seat since John Stennis was last re-elected in 1982, and the first Black senator from the state since Reconstruction. That history is part of why the race has drawn national attention far beyond what a 2,536-vote margin in a single state might ordinarily command.
A ballot fight, and lawyers on both sides
As the count has dragged on, the race has also become a legal fight. Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst, who also serves as general counsel to the Republican National Committee, called the estimated 17,000 affidavit ballots cast in the race “very abnormal” in the state’s history, and said Republicans had sent lawyers to build a record for a later challenge. For comparison, 7,612 affidavit ballots were cast in the entire 2022 midterm election in Mississippi, of which 5,710 were counted.
Democrats, for their part, have pointed to the steady growth of Colom’s lead as evidence that the count is moving in the expected direction, and have urged voters who cast affidavit ballots to cure them before Tuesday’s deadline.
Mississippi law gives candidates no right to demand a recount, so any dispute over the outcome would have to be fought over which ballots count — not over a second count of the ballots already tallied. That makes the affidavit review process, and the deadlines that govern it, the real battleground of the race’s final days.
What happens next
The timeline from here is fixed by state law. Counties have until Friday, November 13, to submit their certified results to the secretary of state’s office. The secretary of state is scheduled to declare the statewide general election results on December 3.
The Associated Press will call the race once it determines the trailing candidate has no path to catch up — a judgment based on the number of ballots still outstanding and where they are, not on the current margin alone. With the mail and ID windows closing Tuesday evening and the affidavit review continuing through Friday, a call could come at any point this week, or the race could remain uncalled until certification.
For Hyde-Smith, the path is narrow but real: she needs the remaining mail ballots and the affidavit ballots still being reviewed to break her way by a wide enough margin to overcome 2,536 votes. For Colom, the task is simpler: hold a lead that has grown every day since Election Day, in a count where most of the remaining ballots sit in counties that have favored him.
Why this matters
The Mississippi race matters for three reasons. First, it will set the final size of the Democrats’ new Senate majority, and with it the margin of error for a party that will need every vote it can get in a chamber where the Senate advanced a sweeping energy permitting bill on Monday in its first week back. Second, it is a test of Mississippi’s affidavit-ballot system under the brightest possible spotlight, with thousands of ballots and a Senate seat hanging on how county election commissions handle them. And third, it is the last unresolved piece of a midterm election that has already reshaped Washington — a week in which Trump said the war with Iran is ‘effectively over’, Senate Republicans fought over whether to keep their leader, and the new Congress began taking shape before it is even sworn in.
The voters of Mississippi have already spoken. On Tuesday, the state decides how many of them get to be heard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the Mississippi Senate race still uncalled a week after Election Day?
Because thousands of mail-in and affidavit ballots were still being processed, and the margin — 2,536 votes — is smaller than the number of ballots outstanding. The Associated Press calls a race only when it determines the trailing candidate has no path to catch up, and with more than 2,700 mail ballots still out and thousands of affidavit ballots under review, that judgment could not yet be made.
What is an affidavit ballot?
An affidavit ballot is Mississippi’s version of a provisional ballot. It is cast when a voter’s name does not appear on the poll book or the voter cannot show an acceptable photo ID at the polls. County election commissioners review each one before deciding whether it counts. Voters who cast one because they lacked photo ID have until 5 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, November 10, to show ID at their county circuit clerk’s office.
When will we know who won?
Counties must submit certified results by Friday, November 13, and the secretary of state is scheduled to declare the statewide results on December 3. The Associated Press could call the race sooner if the remaining ballots make the outcome clear, but it could also remain uncalled until certification.
Has Mississippi ever had a race this close?
Mississippi has not had a statewide race decided by this narrow a margin in recent memory, and no Democrat has won a Senate seat in the state since John Stennis was last re-elected in 1982. The race is also the closest Senate contest left from the 2026 midterms, alongside Alaska’s still-uncalled race.
Sources: Associated Press election results (Mississippi U.S. Senate); Democracy Docket; 2026 United States Senate election in Mississippi; Mississippi Senate count tracker.
