Colom vs. Hyde-Smith: The Money, the Polls and the Rules Before Mississippi Votes

Mississippi voters decide Tuesday whether to keep Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Washington or replace her with Scott Colom, the Democratic district attorney for Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties. Independent Ty Pinkins, an attorney who left the Democratic Party last year, is also on the ballot. A Democrat has not won a U.S. Senate race in Mississippi since 1982, NBC News noted, and Donald Trump carried the state by 23 points in 2024.

The race has drawn more outside money than a Mississippi Senate contest usually does, and the clearest place to start is the campaigns’ own filings. Federal Election Commission reports through Oct. 14 show Hyde-Smith’s campaign raised $6.28 million over the six-year cycle, spent $5.05 million and had $1.40 million in the bank. Colom, who entered the race in September 2025, had raised $4.40 million, spent $3.38 million and had $1.02 million left. Pinkins reported $104,311 raised. In August, the Associated Press reported that since the start of 2025 Colom had out-raised Hyde-Smith among individual donors, $1.9 million to $1.8 million, and that his largest single source by state was Mississippi, at $536,000.

On the airwaves the order flips. The AP, citing the tracking firm AdImpact, reported Oct. 20 that about $8 million had been spent on ads in the race, with Colom at nearly $4.6 million to Hyde-Smith’s $3.2 million. That week, Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, announced $1.2 million in television and digital ads through Election Day. Its spot calls Hyde-Smith a “do-nothing” senator and says she “hasn’t passed one piece of legislation, but she did vote to kick people off Medicaid.” Two days later, Semafor reported that Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican Senate super PAC, placed a buy of more than $1 million. Its ad ties Colom to Schumer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and George Soros and says “Colom supports their radical agenda.” The AP has reported that Soros family money backed Colom’s district attorney campaigns, which Colom has acknowledged.

The polls come with a caveat about who paid for them. Every general-election poll listed on the race’s Wikipedia page was conducted for a Democratic-aligned sponsor. The most recent, by Change Research on Oct. 21 and 22, surveyed 842 likely voters and found Hyde-Smith at 43%, Colom at 40%, Pinkins at 6% and 9% undecided, with a margin of error of 3.5 points. A Data for Progress poll in August had Hyde-Smith ahead 44% to 38%, with Pinkins at 7%. National forecasters still favor the incumbent: in their latest ratings, the Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections rated the seat Likely Republican, and the Silver Bulletin and FiftyPlusOne rated it safer than that. Hyde-Smith beat Democrat Mike Espy by 7 points in the 2018 runoff and by 10 points in their 2020 rematch, the AP reported.

There will be no runoff. With Pinkins polling in the single digits, neither major candidate may reach 50%, and that does not matter in this race. The Secretary of State’s chart of vote requirements, linked from a Sept. 10 statement by Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office, lists U.S. Senate as a plurality office: the candidate with the most votes wins. Hyde-Smith’s 2018 runoff happened because that was a special election, which follows different rules, and the 2020 constitutional amendment that created runoffs applies to statewide state offices such as governor, not to Congress.

Colom, 43, grew up in Columbus, graduated from Millsaps College and the University of Wisconsin Law School, and was elected district attorney in 2015 by unseating Forrest Allgood, who had held the job since 1989. He was reelected in 2019 and 2023. President Joe Biden nominated him to the federal bench in the Northern District of Mississippi in 2022. In April 2023 Hyde-Smith declined to return the “blue slip” the Senate Judiciary Committee uses to move home-state nominees, which effectively blocked him, even though Republican Sen. Roger Wicker supported the nomination. Colom has said he has forgiven her.

Colom has built his pitch around the cost of living and corruption. When he launched his campaign last year, he said he was spurred to run by Hyde-Smith’s vote for the 2025 tax and spending law that cut Medicaid funds, NBC News reported. He has criticized her over tariffs that he says hurt Mississippi farmers and has pushed health coverage for the roughly 400,000 Mississippians without insurance, the AP reported. He challenged her to three debates; she declined. “Our junior senator has totally given away our voice,” he told the AP.

Hyde-Smith, appointed in 2018 to succeed Thad Cochran, is seeking a second full term with Trump’s endorsement. In an Oct. 25 interview with WLOX, she said she has brought “two trillion dollars and over 365 projects to Mississippi” and credited bill language she pushed with keeping Franklin County Hospital in Meadville, which employs about 200 people, open. The Wire has not independently verified the $2 trillion figure. Her campaign has emphasized rural health care, border security, tax relief and conservative judges, WLBT reported. Asked about debates, she told WLOX that Colom “can’t get a crowd in a room if I wasn’t in there.” Her campaign manager, Jake Monssen, told the AP that “Team Cindy is confident that voters will reject this radical agenda at the ballot box on November 3rd.”

Pinkins qualified as an independent by petition after leaving the Democratic Party in 2025; he has said the party treated his campaign unfairly. He has refused calls to drop out. “I will not withdraw,” he wrote on Oct. 27, according to the Mississippi Free Press.

The turnout math is narrow. About 709,000 ballots were cast in Mississippi’s 2022 midterm, according to the AP. Black residents make up about 37% of the state’s population and about a third of a typical November electorate, the AP reported. Stacey Abrams, whose Fair Fight network has worked in the state for years, told theGrio that Colom could win with a shift of fewer than 30,000 votes. That is her estimate, not a projection. If Colom wins, he would be the first African American to win the seat since the 1870s, theGrio noted.

What’s next: polls are open Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mississippi requires photo ID at the polls. The Secretary of State’s office lists acceptable IDs including a Mississippi driver’s license, a U.S. passport, a U.S. military photo ID, a student photo ID from an accredited Mississippi college, and a free Mississippi Voter ID Card from any circuit clerk’s office. A voter without ID can cast an affidavit ballot and then has five business days to show ID at the circuit clerk’s office for it to count. Polling places are listed in the state’s My Election Day lookup at sos.ms.gov, and the state Elections Hotline is 1-800-829-6786. Results begin after 7 p.m. The AP, which counts and calls Mississippi races, said in its Oct. 30 preview that it declares a winner only when no trailing candidate can close the gap, and that Mississippi has no automatic recount; a recount happens only by court order. Watch the first county returns and how many votes Pinkins draws, because in a plurality race his share decides how far below 50% the winner can be.