Roughly a week after Election Day, CNN has projected Democrat Scott Colom the winner of Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race. The result marks the biggest upset of the 2026 midterm elections cycle, which saw Democrats pick up historic gains in both the U.S. House and Senate.
The network’s Decision Desk made the call in the late afternoon after additional ballots from key counties expanded Colom’s lead over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. With an estimated 98.6 to 99 percent of ballots tallied, Colom held 49.2 percent of the vote to Hyde-Smith’s 48.7 percent, a margin of roughly 4,500 to 4,700 votes.
An independent candidate, Ty Pinkins, received an additional 2.1 percent of the vote.
The contest remained uncalled for days because of Mississippi’s process for handling affidavit ballots — provisional ballots cast when a voter’s eligibility or identification could not be verified on Election Day — and outstanding absentee ballots.C ounties faced deadlines to receive postmarked mail ballots and to resolve identification issues on provisional ballots. As those ballots were reviewed and added, Colom’s narrow advantage, which stood at a few thousand votes for much of the period, continued to grow.
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Scott Colom will defeat Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a major upset to become the first Democrat that voters in deep-red Mississippi have elected to the chamber in more than four decades, CNN projects. https://t.co/LIrSavsJ01 pic.twitter.com/DLvYVX3MNB
— CNN (@CNN) November 11, 2026
CNN’s projection followed updates that included results from Hinds County, a Democratic-leaning area, and later counts from other counties.
CNN was the first major outlet to call the race for Colom, doing so around 5:05 p.m. Eastern time. The Associated Press called it shortly before 6 p.m. Eastern after a Jackson County update of more than 2,100 votes put Colom ahead by approximately 4,669 votes out of more than 962,000 counted. Several additional major election forecasters called the race shortly afterwards.
Official certification deadlines remain later, with counties required to submit certified results by November 13 and statewide certification set for December 3, though the remaining uncounted ballots were estimated to be fewer than 12,000 and insufficient to reverse the outcome based on prior patterns.
Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney from north Mississippi, will become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state since John Stennis in 1982 and the first Black person elected to statewide office in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era. Hyde-Smith’s campaign stated that she had spoken with Colom and conceded the race on Wednesday evening.
Hyde-Smith won her previous full term in 2020 by roughly 10 percentage points, defeating Democrat Mike Espy 54.1 percent to 44.1 percent, a margin of about 130,820 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast. Mississippi had not elected a Democratic senator in more than four decades, and President Donald Trump carried the state by more than 22 points in 2024.
The outcome brings the Democratic caucus to 55 seats in the Senate that will convene in January 2027, with the Alaska race still uncalled. Democrat Mary Peltola has declared victory in that race, however, as she currently maintains a narrow lead over incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
