Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi, went from a long shot months ago to holding a 1,138-vote lead over the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, leaving the race too close to call on Thursday.
The tiny margin has given Mississippi an unexpected turn in the national spotlight as the only state other than Alaska where the Senate race has not yet been called. With more than 95 percent of the vote counted, it also sets up a nail-biting wait to learn whether Democrats will expand their already large Senate majority through a state that has not elected a Democrat to the chamber in more than 40 years.
Here’s how the race became this close:
A viral ad propelled the Democrat’s campaign.
In Mississippi, which President Trump won by about 23 points in 2024, Ms. Hyde-Smith was favored to win throughout her campaign. But the deep-red state became an unexpected battleground in October when one of Mr. Colom’s campaign ads went viral.
The roughly 30-second video mocks Ms. Hyde-Smith’s response to a local television anchor’s comment on the rising price of beef: “You have so many proteins to choose from,” she says in a clip.
The video cuts to a man grilling burgers. “Pick another protein?” he says. “I’d rather pick another senator instead.” The message, which aligned with Mr. Colom’s focus on affordability, amplified a gaffe by Ms. Hyde-Smith that turned off voters.
National Democrats noticed. Not long after the ad’s debut, the Senate Majority PAC, the flagship super PAC for Democratic Senate candidates, poured $1.2 million into the race. Then the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm put $500,000 into the state.
High-profile Democrats campaigned for Mr. Colom. Former President Barack Obama filmed an endorsement ad. Former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia all campaigned with him in Mississippi.
Republican super PACs invested into the race, and Mr. Trump campaigned with Ms. Hyde-Smith as the race tightened.
Colom drew Black and white voters, including Republicans.
Mr. Colom, a Black prosecutor running against a white incumbent senator, appealed to Mississippi’s Black residents, a crucial group that typically leans Democratic and counts for about 37 percent of the state’s population, the largest share of any state. He had the biggest margins in predominantly Black counties, according to election data compiled by The New York Times.
If Mr. Colom wins, he would be Mississippi’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era, though he downplayed the milestone during his campaign.
He also employed an unusual strategy: He attended Mr. Trump’s rally in Mississippi for Ms. Hyde-Smith the week before the election — not to confront voters but to walk the line and listen to them discuss issues like health care, grocery bills and gas prices.
He posed for selfies with rally-goers and later said he had converted some to his camp. In an interview with CNN last week, he made an appeal to Republican voters.
“I’m going to get you what you were promised in 2024,” he said, citing three issues he brought up with them: lower grocery prices, an end to wars and the full and transparent release of the Epstein files.
It could take days to know the final result.
The wait could drag on because the deadline for every county to accept mailed ballots is not until next Tuesday. The same deadline applies to affidavit ballots, also known as provisional ballots, which voters can cast if they show up at the polls but are not in the voter rolls or have forgotten to bring a photo ID.
Mr. Colom urged residents to mind the deadline and provide the required documentation, such as a proper ID, to their circuit clerk’s offices to ensure their affidavit ballots are counted.
Counties must count those ballots by Nov. 13, a fixed deadline to submit certified results to the state. There will also not be a runoff, in accordance with state election laws.
A quirk in Mississippi’s statutes — the lack of a mechanism allowing recounts in statewide general elections — also means the candidates may have to wait to see every last ballot being tallied. Without an option to contest the results, candidates can file a legal challenge only to include or exclude a specific group of ballots before the vote is certified, said Derek Muller, an election law expert at Notre Dame Law School.
“We have hundreds of volunteers, we’ve got local lawyers that are going to be at the county meetings in each county,” Mr. Colom said in a news conference on Wednesday. “We will protect the process of this election, we will protect the integrity of this election.”
The closeness of the race surprised voters.
Analysts said they could not remember a Senate race this close in Mississippi. Some supporters of Mr. Colom said they believed that even if Ms. Hyde-Smith wins, the thin margin would diminish her power in Washington.
“I’m pretty amazed,” said Christi Payton, 44, a business owner and teacher in Madison, Miss. “I thought for sure that Cindy Hyde-Smith would retain her office pretty easily.”
Some voters also blamed Ty Pinkins, who is Black and ran in the race as an independent after leaving the Democratic Party last year, for splitting Democratic voters. A lawyer and an Army veteran, Mr. Pinkins disputed this claim, saying that he had not drawn voters away from Mr. Colom and hoped the Democrat would win.
“I didn’t expect it to be this close,” Mr. Pinkins said in an interview. “I am happy that the Democrat is leading.”
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