NBC’s Kornacki floored as he reveals Mississippi Dem 'could actually win'

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) really could lose her U.S. Senate to Democratic district attorney Scott Colom, once 100 percent of the votes come in.

Hyde-Smith blocked Colom's nomination to a federal judgeship under former President Joe Biden. Now, she risks losing her seat to him.

NBC News' Steve Kornacki deliberated over the data Wednesday as the race remained too close to call. Early Wednesday morning, Colom was 50 votes ahead, and that shrank to about 35 votes and then 43 votes.

"Listen, there's like, Lowndes County, 1,200 votes left. Colom is winning that by about 16 points, so he'll net votes from there," said Kornacki. "Jackson County, we've got about 1,600 votes. Hyde-Smith — they probably cancel each other out. I'm seeing a lot of counties that will probably cancel each other out. And the big thing that's jumping out at this is that the most remaining vote is in Hinds County. And of all the counties where there's remaining vote, where there's significant remaining vote, it's the one where a candidate has the most lopsided advantage. You know, Colom leading that by 60 points."

That's what made Kornacki think that Colom was likely to pull it out in the end. He said, "with a giant number that is left there. And then for the remaining vote there, elsewhere, to either be a wash or somewhat erode — yeah. You're looking at, really, a possibility here of Colom, the Democrat, winning this race."

"Wow. Wow. With what's left there, Colom could actually win this," he added.

Justin Slaughter, a former Democratic advisor now working at Paradigm, noted that Mississippi is the only state with no recount laws on the books. It means that if the race is close, there's no automatic trigger to recount the ballots.

The state hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1982, and its electorate remains strongly conservative, which gave Hyde-Smith a significant structural advantage. But Colom was a unique candidate. He campaigned everywhere and shook hands with anyone, including President Donald Trump's voters standing outside waiting to go into a MAGA rally.

The issue was that Mississippi still had provisional ballots to check and count, and it also had five days from Election Day to accept mail-in ballots. It's caused a hefty delay. The Decision Desk said there are likely 44,000 remaining votes to be counted.