Mississippi could flip as Dem leads by 50 votes — in state without recount

Mississippi’s 2026 Senate race has become a nationally watched contest between Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic district attorney Scott Colom, with independent Ty Pinkins also on the ballot.

As of early Wednesday morning, Colom led by fewer than 50 votes with 96 percent reporting.

Hyde-Smith was favored to win in the deeply Republican state, but Colom has made the race unexpectedly competitive. The two candidates have a history, CNN noted. Former President Joe Biden nominated Colom to be a federal judge. Senators have the opportunity to block a federal judgeship if it's for their own state and Hyde-Smith blocked Colom. So, Colom ran against her for the U.S. Senate.

In a "wave" year, anything could happen, and unlike previous waves and midterms, the top-of-mind issues and President Donald Trump have made things difficult for the GOP.

Justin Slaughter, a former Democratic advisor now working at Paradigm, noted that Mississippi is the only state with no recount laws on the books.

In most states, a recount is triggered automatically when the margin falls below a set threshold, or a candidate can formally request one. Mississippi is the only state in the U.S. with neither mechanism. So, if the Senate race is extremely close, there is no automatic statewide recount and no candidate-initiated recount process under state law. If Hyde-Smith were to lose, she can't simply demand a recount unless she intends to challenge that in court.

"We are in a very good lead right now," Hyde-Smith told a crowd of supporters late Tuesday evening. "I assure you, I will continue to be your U.S. Senator."

On Tuesday evening, as the race tightened, NBC's Savannah Guthrie recalled Colom attending a MAGA rally to shake hands. She said Colom's 28-vote lead at 1 a.m. EST could have come from that kind of reaching across the aisle.

The state hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1982, and its electorate remains strongly conservative, giving Hyde-Smith a structural advantage. But Colom was a unique candidate.

"Democrats have been buoyed by signs they are making modest gains in the state, which has the highest percentage of Black residents in the country. The Democratic candidate lost the 2023 gubernatorial race by three points, and last year, the party picked up a handful of seats in the state legislature under new, court-ordered maps," CNN reported.

Colom's closing message featured an ad outside the home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was shot and killed in his driveway.

"It has no front door," he says about the Evers home. "You come in through the carport where the walls give you some cover. The children slept on the floor, below the windows. Their father taught them that if they ever heard gunfire, they should crawl to the bathroom."

In the ad, Colom walks through Evers' history fighting for America in World War II at Normandy. Yet, when Evers returned home, he was a second-class citizen again. He wasn't allowed to vote. So, he fought the system in an area of the country that wasn't safe for people of color who stood up for their rights.

The district attorney explained that no one was above the law in Mississippi, and despite previous juries refusing to convict accused shooters, when a prosecutor brought the case 31 years later, a jury of both white and Black people convicted Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council in Jackson.

Colom asked Mississippi residents to honor the memory of Evers and all who died fighting for that right by voting on Nov. 3.

Hyde-Smith’s strategy has been different. She consolidated the GOP base by touting her close relationship to Trump, who is suffering from the lowest job approval ratings of his political career. Hyde-Smith has celebrated the Trump agenda, including cuts to social safety-net programs and immigration raids.

It might be why Hyde-Smith's number plummeted along with Trump's.

A late-October FiftyPlusOne poll showed Colom trailing Hyde-Smith by just 3 percentage points, which is within the survey’s margin of error.

As in other states like South Carolina and Florida, races are close, but turnout drove the results. That's what gave an entrenched Republican a run for her money.