1,138 Votes: Mississippi Senate Race Lacks Recount Process
With 96% of the vote in, Scott Colom leads Cindy Hyde-Smith by a slim margin in a state where no formal recount mechanism exists.
By Tessa Cooper ·
The difference between Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi Senate race stands at 1,138 votes as of Wednesday morning. This razor-thin lead places the contest in a state of administrative limbo, as the state has no standard procedure for a recount.
Colom, the Democratic challenger, has accumulated 464,926 votes. Hyde-Smith, the incumbent Republican, holds 463,788 votes. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins trails with 19,934 votes, accounting for 2.1% of the total. These figures reflect 96% of the expected vote reporting.
The Mississippi Secretary of State’s office confirmed that candidates cannot request a recount, nor is one automatically triggered by the narrow margin. The only recourse for a losing candidate is a ballot box exam after the election is certified. If issues are found during that examination, the candidate may file a legal challenge.
Secretary of State Michael Watson provided an update on Wednesday afternoon regarding outstanding ballots. He stated that approximately 3,600 mail ballots remain to be processed. These must arrive within five business days of the election, a deadline set for Nov. 10, 2026. Watson noted that an unknown number of affidavit ballots, which serve as provisional ballots in Mississippi, will also be processed within the 10-day certification window for counties.
The certification deadline for all results is Nov. 13. While the secretary’s office could not provide a definitive number for the remaining affidavit ballots, Colom’s campaign manager estimated on Tuesday night that the campaign anticipates around 15,000 such ballots are left to be counted. The affidavit process allows a resident to vote if their address cannot be located in the poll book at their precinct.
The candidates involved in this tight contest have distinct political backgrounds. Colom serves as a district attorney for four counties along the Mississippi-Alabama border and was a former nominee for a U.S. district judgeship. If he wins, he would become Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. Hyde-Smith, who took office by appointment in 2018, won her first full term in 2020 with 54% of the vote.
The close margin is surprising in a state that voted for President Donald Trump with 61% of the vote in 2024. Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982. The state’s deep red political leanings make the near-tie in the Senate race an outlier for recent election cycles.
President Trump held a rally with Hyde-Smith last month to bolster support for the incumbent. During that event, Hyde-Smith described her opponent as the most radical Senate candidate to run for Mississippi in their lifetimes. Colom responded at a press conference before the rally, noting that many supporters could not attend because they could not afford the gas to travel to the venue.
