FACTS
Democrat Scott Colom has won the Mississippi Senate race, defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith after more than a week of counting, the Associated Press projected Wednesday, Nov. 11. Hyde-Smith has conceded, according to the Mississippi Free Press. Colom will be the state’s first Democratic senator since 1982 and its first Black senator since Reconstruction.
How the Mississippi Senate race was decided
The count ran long because local officials spent several days processing absentee ballots and provisional ballots, which Mississippi calls affidavit ballots, the AP reported through PBS NewsHour. Published counts before the call showed the two candidates separated by a fraction of a percentage point.
Counties face a state deadline of Nov. 13 to certify results and send them to the secretary of state, according to the Mississippi Free Press. Final certified totals had not been published as of Friday morning.
The AP said turnout was strong in the Mississippi Delta and the state’s majority-Black counties, and that nearly all of the state shifted toward Democrats compared with 2024, when President Donald Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points. Stay Current News explained before Election Day how the AP decides when to call a race.
Who Scott Colom is
Colom, 43, is a local prosecutor. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated him to be a federal district judge in northern Mississippi. Hyde-Smith blocked the nomination under the Senate custom that lets home-state senators stop such nominees, the AP reported. Mississippi’s senior senator, Republican Roger Wicker, and former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour had backed that nomination.
During the campaign, Colom said, “It’s got to be about having a party that represents rural America again, suburban America, urban America.” His closing ad was filmed at the Jackson home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
Hyde-Smith, 67, was appointed to the Senate in 2018 after Thad Cochran resigned. She won a special election runoff that year and a full term in 2020, defeating Democrat Mike Espy both times. Before the race was called, she told supporters, “We will see this through to the very end!”
What it means for Senate control
Democracy Now! reported that Colom’s win gives Democrats 55 Senate seats. Before Mississippi was called, Fox News put the count at 54 Democrats and 44 Republicans, with Mississippi and Alaska undecided. Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress in January.
Alaska is the last race still open
In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola led Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan 48.6% to 47.5% in first-choice votes as of Nov. 10, a gap of 2,517 votes, Fox News reported. About three-quarters of the expected vote had been counted.
More ballots are scheduled to be counted Friday, Nov. 13, and Wednesday, Nov. 18. If no candidate passes 50%, ranked-choice tabulation takes place Nov. 18, after the deadline for overseas ballots. Results are to be certified Nov. 25.
“After every vote is counted, it is clear that Mary Peltola will be elected Alaska’s next United States Senator,” Peltola campaign manager Cheryl Bruce said. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, said, “We’re still in the process of bringing in votes and counting votes.”
