Democrat Scott Colom holds a 43-vote lead over Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith with 97% of precincts reporting.
A blue tsunami swept across the U.S. on Tuesday, with Democrats winning majorities in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.
Mississippi could add to those Democrat gains if Scott Colom can hold on to his current lead.
As of 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, Colom leads incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 43 votes with 97% of precincts reporting across the Magnolia State.
Colom and Hyde-Smith have 48.9% of the vote while independent candidate Ty Pinkins has 2.1%.
Colom supporters, who urged the independent to withdraw, have for weeks decried Pinkins’ candidacy fearing his continued bid would harm the Democrat’s chance of winning.
Pinkins’ nearly 20,000 votes would have definitely swayed the results one way or the other in this close race.
Republican voters did not carry Hyde-Smith this cycle like they did when she won the special election in 2018 and then again in 2020. In 2018, Hyde-Smith drew 487,000 votes and won with 54%, while in 2020 she pulled in 710,000 votes and again won with 54%.
On Tuesday, preliminary results show both Hyde-Smith and Colom with just under 463,000 votes each.
Various select precincts around Mississippi have yet to be reported and thousands of affidavit ballots remain to be counted. That process could take up to five business days.
If Colom holds on and wins, he will not only be the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate since 1982 but he will also be the first black Senator to represent Mississippi since Republican Blanche Bruce left office in 1881. Bruce was elected to the Senate in 1874 and served one term.
Nearly $16 milllon in out-of-state PAC spending poured into Mississippi to buoy Colom’s bid while the Democrat leaned into his party’s platform by fully embracing national progressives who came to the state to campaign alongside him down the stretch. Among the national Democrats to come to Colom’s aid were former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris and a handful of sitting Senators from blue states. Former President Barack Obama also appeared in an ad for Colom.
Hyde-Smith, the state’s first female to be elected to a federal office, leaned heavily on her endorsement from President Donald Trump, as Mississippi voters have heavily supported the Republican president in his last three elections. Trump even appeared with Hyde-Smith last week in North Mississippi to help get out the vote.
But Colom’s savvy with social media, his use of polls to gain belief money from big out-of-state Democrat donors and aligned PACs, and his appeal to the black community helped him make what was believed to be a solid Republican seat a toss up over the last month.
Republican voters either appeared to assume Hyde-Smith had the race well in hand or chose to stay home, not being motivated by her work in the Senate or her campaign’s messaging.
There will be no runoff in Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race should a candidate fail to reach the 50% +1 vote threshold. All that is required by state law in federal general elections for a candidate to win is a plurality, or receiving more than any of the other candidates, even if they do not reach 50%.
That has happened before in Mississippi, in this same Senate seat.
In 1978, Republican Thad Cochran won his first term to the U.S. Senate over Democrat Maurice Dantin and Independent Charles Evers. Cochran won 45.3% to Dantin’s 31.8% and Evers’ 22.6%. Cochran went on to become Mississippi’s first Republican U.S. Senator since Reconstruction and would serve until 2018.
-- Article credit to Frank Corder for the Magnolia Tribune --
