A race still too close to call
Four days after Election Day, the U.S. Senate race in Mississippi has no declared winner, according to Fox News. Democrat Scott Colom holds a 2,574-vote lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Nearly 1 million Mississippians cast ballots.
The closeness runs against what many forecasters expected. Most rated the contest as either solid or likely Republican. The last public poll, from Change Research and conducted Oct. 21-22, showed Colom trailing Hyde-Smith by three points, within its margin of error. Fox News described that poll as having proven quite accurate.
Other outlets tracking the count, including the New York Times, MS NOW and AP News, have reported on Colom's lead and said it has been growing. The Mississippi Free Press reported that Colom flipped Forrest County, which is named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.
What the candidates are saying
Colom told reporters Friday he is confident, even with a slim margin. "Everybody who knows the math, it's going in our direction," he said.
Hyde-Smith's campaign released a statement Friday afternoon saying "this election is not over." "We are not backing down," the campaign said. It added: "Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!"
The ballots still to be counted
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Friday that just over 3,000 mail-in ballots still need to be processed. Under state rules, election officials can legally receive these ballots until Nov. 10, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. That window means the tally could keep changing for several more days.
Provisional ballots are also outstanding. These are cast by voters whose eligibility cannot be immediately verified at the polls. They are set aside and reviewed before being counted. The exact number is not known. The Colom campaign has estimated there could be as many as 15,000, though that figure is the campaign's own projection rather than an official count.
Because the number of provisional ballots is uncertain and the outcomes of their reviews are not yet known, the size of Colom's current lead does not settle the result by itself.
A historic possibility
If Colom prevails, he would be the first Black U.S. senator to represent Mississippi since Reconstruction. He would also be the first Black senator from the state chosen by popular vote.
Mississippi's two earlier Black senators were selected by the state legislature. That was the practice before the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, established the direct election of U.S. senators.
What happens next
The next steps are administrative. Officials will continue processing the mail-in ballots that arrive by the Nov. 10 deadline and will review provisional ballots before adding them to the totals. Both campaigns have said they are watching the process closely, and the outcome will depend on what those remaining ballots show.
