JACKSON, Mississippi — UPDATE to Awaaz Punjab's election-night report, which left Mississippi's U.S. Senate race separated by just 28 votes: Democrat Scott Colom's lead over Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has grown to 1,138 votes in the Associated Press's latest count on Wednesday night, November 4, 2026 — 464,926 votes to 463,788 — but the AP still rates the race Too Early to Call, and thousands of affidavit and mail ballots remain to be processed before Mississippi can name a winner.
The new AP table, for Senate Race 26692, shows 1,733 of Mississippi's 1,736 precincts reporting — 99.83 per cent — with an estimated 95.56 per cent of the total vote counted. Colom and Hyde-Smith each gained a little more than 2,100 votes as Wednesday's counting batches were added, and the margin moved in steps through the day: 28 votes in the early hours, 43 votes at 3 a.m. Central time (462,821 to 462,778), and 1,138 votes by Wednesday evening. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins holds roughly 19,935 votes, about 2.1 per cent — a total many times larger than the gap between the two leaders.
One of only two Senate races left in America
Agence France-Presse, in a report updated late on Wednesday, described Mississippi and Alaska as the final two U.S. Senate results still to be called, a day after Democrats stormed to victory across the country and took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Mississippi's cliffhanger is the closer of the two: a deeply conservative state that President Donald Trump won by more than 20 points in the last presidential election is within roughly a thousand votes of sending a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since John Stennis won in 1982.
The stakes are personal as well as partisan. Kicks 96 News, a central Mississippi news service, reported on Wednesday night that the lead stood at fewer than 1,200 votes with 99 per cent of the vote counted, and noted that if Colom's lead holds he would become the first Black Mississippian elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. Hyde-Smith, the incumbent, is seeking her second full term. Colom is the district attorney for Mississippi's 16th Judicial District, based in Lowndes County — a prosecutor who won his Democratic primary in March with about 73 per cent of the vote.
What is still uncounted: affidavit ballots and late mail
The ballots that remain fall into two groups, local reporting explains: affidavit ballots — cast by voters whose names were not on the poll books or who did not have an acceptable form of identification, and which are counted only after county officials verify eligibility — and mail-in absentee ballots that had not yet been received. Under Mississippi law, provisional and affidavit ballots can be counted for up to five business days after the election, so the final margin may not be settled until next week. Colom has publicly urged voters who cast affidavit ballots to resolve any issues with county officials by November 10, and has said he is confident he will win; that confidence is the campaign's own claim, and the AP has made no call.
With an estimated 4.4 per cent of the vote still uncounted and a margin of 1,138 votes, the outstanding affidavit and mail ballots are still numerous enough, on paper, to change the leader. News organisations call a race only when the remaining vote can no longer overtake the leader — that test is not yet met in Mississippi.
No runoff, and a House delegation that does not change
One rule shortens the endgame: there is no runoff. Mississippi's majority-vote runoff applies to special elections — the route by which Hyde-Smith herself first won this seat in 2018 — not to a regular general election, which is decided by simple plurality. Whoever finishes first, even by a few hundred votes, takes the seat. Down the ballot, Mississippi's U.S. House delegation will be unchanged: Republicans Trent Kelly, Michael Guest and Mike Ezell were re-elected alongside Democrat Bennie Thompson, Kicks 96 News reported.
What it means beyond Mississippi
Democrats have already won control of the Senate, with at least 54 seats on Wednesday's counts, so Mississippi will not decide who runs the chamber — it will decide how big the majority is. That single seat matters for the votes closest to this site's readers in the United States, including the Punjabi diaspora and the trucking community: immigration enforcement policy, federal highway and freight funding, and the rules governing commercial driving all pass through Senate committees and floor votes where one vote can decide an amendment. A Colom win would also complete a remarkable election-night story — a Democratic pickup in a state the president's party carried by more than 20 points.
What happens next
County election officials will keep reviewing affidavit ballots through the five-business-day window, late-arriving mail ballots postmarked by Election Day will be added, and the county-by-county canvass will follow before the state certifies a winner. The AP will call the race when the remaining vote can no longer change the leader. With a margin this small, post-count scrutiny by both campaigns — and a possible court challenge by whichever side finishes behind — remains likely. Until a call or certification arrives, the honest headline is the count itself: Colom leads by 1,138 votes, and Mississippi is still counting.