Democrat Scott Colom maintained a microscopic lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Sunday as officials continued tallying ballots in an unexpectedly tight Mississippi Senate race, with an independent candidate publicly claiming credit for disrupting the contest.
With 96.2 percent of ballots tabulated, Colom held a lead of 1,936 votes over Hyde-Smith, a gap of approximately 0.2 percentage points, according to the Associated Press. Both candidates have projected confidence that they will ultimately prevail once all valid votes are counted, CBS News reported.
Mississippi election officials said thousands of mail-in ballots remain uncounted and could legally arrive up to five days after Election Day, CBS News reported. Local election boards must also review an unknown quantity of affidavit ballots cast by voters whose registration eligibility requires formal verification before being added to the final total.
The independent spoiler
The razor-thin margin has drawn intense focus to independent candidate Ty Pinkins, who captured 20,010 votes—roughly 2.1 percent of the nearly 952,000 votes counted so far, CNBC reported. That vote total is roughly 10 times larger than Colom’s current lead.
Pinkins, an attorney and U.S. Army veteran, ran as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2024, losing decisively to Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who took nearly 63 percent of the vote compared to 37 percent for Pinkins. He launched another bid as an independent in 2026, initially hoping to win.
However, Pinkins told WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, that after an April poll by the SPLC Action Fund and Impact Research showed him far behind, he realized he could not win. Instead of withdrawing, Pinkins decided to remain on the ballot to peel conservative votes away from Hyde-Smith and aid Colom, CNBC reported.
“The only thing I did was stay in the race and let people shoot arrows at me,” Pinkins told WTVA. “The portion of the vote that I drew — and people were concerned about splitting the Black vote — what I actually did was split the Republican vote.”
Pinkins explained that he attended only about six campaign events over the summer and intentionally avoided majority-Black areas to prevent dividing Black voter turnout with Colom, who is also Black. Instead, Pinkins focused on counties with low Black populations to court disaffected conservatives, claiming that Republican voters had contacted him asking for an alternative to Hyde-Smith. The campaigns for Colom and Hyde-Smith did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC.
National Senate landscape
The uncalled contest in Mississippi comes as Democrats have already secured majority control of the U.S. Senate, holding at least 54 seats compared to 44 for Republicans, CBS News reported.
Mississippi is one of just two Senate races nationwide where a winner has not yet been projected. In Alaska, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is defending his seat against Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, where the state’s ranked-choice tabulation system is expected to extend the counting process for roughly two weeks after Election Day, CBS News reported.
Mississippi election workers are continuing to review affidavit ballots and monitor mail-in receipts, leaving the final outcome in doubt until local authorities finish certified tabulations.
