USAupdated 27m ago2 min read
Scott Colom Wins Mississippi Senate Race After Days Of Counting, Media Projects
“concerns raised over voter challenges and data”
“There is no recount law in Mississippi”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith to win Mississippi Senate seat. Colom becomes Mississippi's first Black senator since Reconstruction.
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Mississippi Senate, Ballot Fight
Democrat Scott Colom won Mississippi’s closely watched United States Senate race on Wednesday, defeating incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith after days of counting, US media projected. Colom became the Southern state’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era that followed the US Civil War, and the race was described as so tight that Colom at times led by only a few dozen votes.
Voting rights advocates raised concerns that faulty data was causing deactivation of some voters, and affidavit ballots in Mississippi are provisional ballots that allow people to cast a vote even if they show up without voter ID or do not show up as a registered voter at their polling place. Officials in Hinds County, which contains the city of Jackson, finished processing affidavit ballots on Wednesday, and Hinds County voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 by over 40 percentage points.
Data Dispute and Lawyers
Experian’s vice president of corporate communications, Scott Anderson, told ABC News that its data should not have been used for the purpose of deactivating voters, saying, "Decisions regarding voter registration policies, procedures and record updates are made solely by election officials".
Colom placed the blame on Secretary of State Michael Watson, saying, "Experian told him they were not reliable. He did it anyways."
Decision Desk HQ found that with around 95 percent of ballots counted, Colom was slightly ahead with 49.11 percent of the vote compared with Hyde-Smith’s 48.79 percent, or 470,266 votes to 467,183.
Univision reported that Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said that as of Sunday, 12,767 of affidavit ballots had been processed and roughly 77 percent had been accepted, while it said more than 2,800 mail-in votes remained outstanding.
Certification Deadline and Stakes
The Associated Press called the race for Colom just before 6 p.m. ET after officials in Jackson County updated their vote count with an additional 2,173 votes, putting Colom up by 4,669 votes out of 962,237 counted.
“Blue Mississippi is here. Scott Colom is the only person who could’ve gotten this done.”
Mississippi has no recount law and Hyde-Smith would need to persuade a court to order a review of the election, while fewer than 12,000 votes remained for county election officials to review before the deadline Friday for counties to certify their election results.
BBC reported that state law held that the deadline to certify results was this Friday, and it said thousands of postal and affidavit ballots remained uncounted with the race holding a lead of about 2,500 ballots, less than 1% for Colom.
Colom’s win gave Democrats a rare, historic victory in a Republican stronghold and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X, "Blue Mississippi is here. Scott Colom is the only person who could’ve gotten this done."