Key facts
- Democrat Scott Colom led Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by about 2,500 ballots, less than 1%, per the latest tally.
- State officials estimated between 12,000 and 20,000 affidavit ballots were cast, the BBC reported.
- Roughly 15,500 affidavit ballots had been processed as of Tuesday morning, the report said.
- A Colom win would make him Mississippi's first black senator in over 140 years, the report said.
- A Colom victory would take the Democratic Senate majority-elect to 55 seats, with Alaska still to be called.
- Each party has sent teams of lawyers into Mississippi, the BBC reported, with legal challenges possible.
Mississippi's Senate race remained uncalled a week after the November 3, 2026, midterm elections, with Democrat Scott Colom holding a lead of about 2,500 ballots, less than 1%, over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, according to the latest tally reported by the BBC.
State officials estimated that between 12,000 and 20,000 affidavit ballots were cast, the BBC reported. As of Tuesday morning, roughly 15,500 had been processed, a difference the report said could be enough to swing the race. Affidavit ballots are ones not immediately accepted because of a discrepancy such as lacking proper ID on election day; voters are asked to fill out a provisional ballot and return to resolve the issue. The deadline for affidavit and mail-in ballots was Tuesday, and state law sets the deadline to certify results as Friday, November 13, 2026.
A Colom victory would make him Mississippi's first black senator in over 140 years and the state's first Democratic senator in nearly four decades, the report said. It would also add to the Democratic Senate majority-elect, taking it to 55 seats, with a knife-edge race in Alaska still to be called. The report said a Colom win would end a Republican winning streak in Mississippi dating back to 1982.
The BBC reported that each party has sent teams of lawyers into Mississippi, setting up the possibility of legal challenges over the result. Colom, a local prosecutor, campaigned in all of Mississippi's 82 counties and attacked Hyde-Smith's support for Trump's tariffs, giving her the nickname "Cindy High Prices." Hyde-Smith's campaign assailed Colom as a puppet of billionaire liberal donor George Soros, whose family has helped fund the Democrat's political campaigns, the report said.
The report said voter backlash against Trump's Republican Party was driven in large part by economic woes blamed on his administration's tariffs and war with Iran, according to exit polls. It also cited early exit polls showing Mississippi's black voters gave Democrats 91% of their votes.