Republicans launch desperate last-minute bid as deep-red state goes blue

Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom greets supporters while awaiting results during his midterm election watch party at the Ice House in Jackson, Mississippi, US November 3, 2026

On Thursday, with Mississippi’s razor-thin race for the Senate still undecided, Republicans launched a desperate last-minute bid to stave off what appears to be another red seat – one of the reddest, in fact – flipping blue. With the Democrats ahead by an exceptionally slim margin, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has sent a letter to county clerks and election officials throughout the state demanding that late-arriving affidavit ballots be separated and preserved, possibly with the intention of challenging their validity should the numbers not go their way.

The narrow race in Mississippi is one of the big surprises of the midterms, at one point coming down to a margin of just a few dozen votes out of nearly a million counted. By Thursday morning, Democratic candidate Scott Colom’s lead had grown to over 1,700, and according to a statement issued by the campaign, “We're confident Scott's lead will continue to grow as the remaining votes are counted. We're staying focused and protecting the integrity of our election.” According to the Mississippi Secretary of State, there are “approximately 3,600 outstanding absentee-by-mail ballots that must be received within five business days and an unknown number of affidavit ballots that will be processed within the 10-day window counties have to certify their results.”

As Democracy Docket explains, “Like other states, Mississippi allows voters who don’t appear on local polling precincts’ registration records to cast a provisional, or ‘affidavit,’ ballot. But unlike in most other states, Mississippians cast huge numbers of affidavit ballots this year, after Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) flagged 230,000 voter registrations as ‘inactive.’” State law decrees that election officials must count affidavit ballots provided that the voter was previously registered in the precinct where they attempted to vote, the voter and the precinct’s poll manager properly signed the affidavit ballot’s envelope, and the voter provides acceptable voter identification within five business days of Election Day. According to Democracy Docket, “This process will be closely watched by both campaigns and could lead to litigation. Unlike most states, Mississippi doesn’t have a recount law, but candidates can try to sue to exclude or include certain ballots from the final count.” Now, judging by the GOP’s demands regarding affidavit ballots, it appears the party may attempt to have them excluded should they add to Colom’s lead.

Should current Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) ultimately lose, it will represent yet another historic shift in an already history-making midterm season, which has seen the GOP decimated due to blowback from President Donald Trump's wild unpopularity. Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982, and Colom would be the state’s first black senator since just after the Civil War. Other states that saw shocking seat flips included Texas, which elected its first Democratic senator in nearly 40 years and its first Democratic governor since 1991, South Carolina, which hasn’t elected a blue senator since 1998, and Kansas, which hasn’t had a Democratic senator in nearly 100 years.

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