AP Calls Mississippi's Senate Race for Scott Colom; Cindy Hyde-Smith Concedes the Closest Senate Race in the Country
Eight days, a 43-vote election-night lead and a 4,669-vote finish: the district attorney whose judgeship Hyde-Smith blocked in 2023 is now Mississippi's first Black senator since Reconstruction - and Democrats' eighth pickup of the midterms.
The last close Senate race in the country has a winner. The Associated Press called Mississippi's U.S. Senate election for Democrat Scott Colom at 5:58 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, November 11, after eight days of counting absentee and provisional ballots - and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith conceded the same evening, ending the closest Senate contest of the 2026 midterms. NBC News and CNN's Decision Desk separately projected the same outcome. With about 99 percent of precincts reporting, Colom led by 4,669 votes - 473,336 (49.2 percent) to Hyde-Smith's 468,667 (48.7 percent), with independent Ty Pinkins at 20,234 (2.1 percent).
The margin's path is the story of the count. Colom led by just 43 votes after the final election-night update, which arrived from Pike County in the early hours of November 4, and the lead widened in steps this station filed on day by day - past 2,000, past 2,500 - as affidavit and absentee ballots were processed across Mississippi's 82 counties. The AP said the decisive update came from Jackson County, a Republican-leaning area where Hyde-Smith needed a strong performance to close the gap and did not get one. Hyde-Smith's concession came in a two-minute video posted shortly after the call: 'While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,' she said. A spokesman said she called Colom to congratulate him before the video was shared.
The history in the result is not decoration. Colom, 43, the district attorney for Mississippi's Sixteenth Circuit Court District, becomes the state's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction - and the first Black person elected to the Senate from Mississippi by popular vote. The senator he defeated, Hyde-Smith, 67, endorsed by President Donald Trump and seeking a second full term, is the same senator who blocked Colom's nomination to a federal judgeship in 2023. His win is Democrats' eighth Senate pickup of the 2026 midterms, in a state that had not sent a Democrat to the Senate in 44 years.
What remains is paperwork, and it matters enough to state plainly: race calls are news organizations' assessments, and Hyde-Smith's concession is a political act - neither certifies an election. Mississippi's results remain unofficial until the counties submit certified results, which the Secretary of State has set for Friday, November 13. Alaska's Senate race - where Mary Peltola leads Dan Sullivan by 4,250 votes with ranked-choice tabulation set for November 18 - is now the last uncalled Senate contest in the country, and this desk's running file on it continues.
