Democratic challenger Scott Colom maintained a slim advantage over incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi Senate election as critical ballot processing deadlines expired on Tuesday. As of 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Colom was ahead by 2,607 votes out of 953,547 total votes counted. The Associated Press estimated that approximately 97% of the ballots had been tallied at that time, placing the margin of victory at a mere 0.27 percentage points.
The race also included an independent contender, Ty Pinkins, who had accumulated 20,034 votes. The outcome remains pivotal as the state navigates the final stages of vote certification.
Tuesday marked the statutory deadline for resolving affidavit and provisional ballots. These ballots are cast by voters whose eligibility was questioned or unclear on Election Day. The date also served as the cutoff for the receipt of mail-in absentee ballots that were postmarked by November 3.
Mississippi joins Alaska as one of only two states where the Senate election has not yet been officially called. The uncertainty in these two contests has significant implications for the overall balance of power in the U.S. Senate come January.
Democrats have successfully flipped seven Senate seats that were held by Republicans prior to the election cycle. If these gains hold, the Democratic Party will secure a new majority in the 100-member chamber, holding at least 54 seats.
Prior to Election Day, political analysts focused heavily on Alaska as the potential deciding factor for whether Republicans would retain their narrow majority. Mississippi, however, was largely overlooked. The state has not elected a Democratic senator since John Stennis in 1982, a period that saw the state dominated by Republican or segregationist Democratic candidates.
A victory for Colom would mark a historic milestone, making him the first Black senator from Mississippi since the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era. Colom, a local district attorney, has campaigned on a platform that resonates with voters seeking change in the state’s congressional representation.
In the other undecided race in Alaska, Democratic nominee Mary Peltola leads incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan by 2,517 votes. With 218,641 votes counted, Peltola holds a 1.1 percentage point advantage, representing 48.6% of the total vote.
The Alaska race involves a ranked-choice voting system that could determine the final outcome. If neither Peltola nor Sullivan reaches the 50% threshold, the contest will proceed to a second round. In that scenario, the two other candidates, Gerald Heikes and a different candidate also named Dan Sullivan, would be eliminated. The second-choice preferences of voters who initially supported the eliminated candidates would then be reallocated between Peltola and the incumbent Republican.
