Colom leads Mississippi Senate race by 2,734 votes in late count

Scott Colom held a 2,734 vote lead in the Mississippi Senate race as of late Friday afternoon, according to preliminary tallies from Decision Desk HQ. The margin places the Democrat within striking distance of upending the state's Republican hold on the seat. Incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith had been given a 91 percent probability of winning by the same forecasting service before Tuesday's polls closed. Thousands of ballots remained outstanding at the time of the latest count.

The shift in support is evident in areas that voted heavily for Hyde-Smith six years ago. In DeSoto County, a suburb of Memphis, Colom leads by roughly six points. Hyde-Smith carried that county by 16 points in 2020. On the Gulf Coast, her lead in Harrison County has shrunk from 17 points in 2020 to approximately four points in current unofficial results. Colom also drew about 4,000 votes in Pearl River County, accounting for 24 percent of the preliminary count. That figure exceeds the 2,400 votes received by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Brandon Presley in 2023 and the 16 percent won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.

Brannon Miller, whose consulting firm Chism Strategies managed a super PAC effort for the race, attributed the gains in Republican-leaning areas to targeted messaging. New Southern Majority, a group linked to the Southern Poverty Law Center, spent just under $1 million to reach approximately 200,000 Republican voters. Their ads focused on Hyde-Smith's positions regarding the war in Iran, gas prices, tariffs, and data centers. Miller stated that Colom's performance in counties where Democrats typically receive less than 15 percent of the vote suggests a crossover of white Republican voters. "There is literally no other explanation," Miller said. "These are places where Democrats get less than 15 percent of the vote in a presidential year. There are not Democrats there to turn out."

Local organizers also credit the results with high turnout among Black and young voters. Preliminary returns indicate that about 10 percent more votes were cast in majority-Black counties than in the 2023 governor's race. The New York Times estimated that 91 percent of Black voters backed Colom. Voters under 30 supported him by a 44-point margin compared to the 2024 election. Arekia Bennett-Scott, executive director of Mississippi Votes, noted that students viewed redistricting as a threat to Black political representation, which motivated them to rally in Jackson and organize on campuses.

DeSoto County Democratic Party Chair Deborah Williams said the campaign knocked on nearly 70,000 doors and increased absentee ballot usage. She observed long lines of young voters on Election Day, with some waiting two or three hours in the rain. Williams said Colom's "Mississippi Matters" message resonated with those younger voters. "Mississippi had been perceived as a deep-red state, but it really wasn't a deep-red state," Williams said. "It was a state where people weren't engaged in this process for a number of different reasons."

The race remains undecided pending the final count of outstanding ballots. Hyde-Smith still led among white voters by 49 points in preliminary estimates, a margin that is 19 points narrower than President Trump's margin with that demographic in 2024.