How Did a 28-Vote Lead in the Mississippi Senate Race Become 2,574?

Lafayette County’s affidavit ballots went 142 for Scott Colom and 60 for Cindy Hyde-Smith. The county’s own Election Day ballots went the other way: Hyde-Smith 6,847, Colom 6,688. The in-person absentee ballots went to Colom, 53.5 percent to 45.3 percent, and the mail-in absentees 58.1 percent to 40.1 percent. Overall the county went to Colom, 8,525 to 8,325.

At midnight on election night, Colom led by 28 votes — 462,779 to 462,751. By 3 a.m. it was 43; by Thursday morning, 1,138. By Friday morning, 1,936. By Friday evening, 2,574 — Colom 467,930, Hyde-Smith 465,356, with about 97 percent counted. The lead has grown at every count, from 28 votes to more than 2,500 — roughly ninety times as large in three days.

Between 3 a.m. Wednesday and Friday evening, about 7,800 ballots were added to the count: 5,109 of them for Colom, 2,578 for Hyde-Smith, 93 for the Libertarian, Ty Pinkins. That is about two in three for Colom and one in three for Hyde-Smith.

The affidavit pile exists because the state put more than 230,000 Mississippians on the inactive list before the election — about one voter in nine, up from roughly 166,000 in 2024. Inactive voters stay on the rolls but must vote by affidavit. The rise followed the March primaries, months after the Secretary of State signed a $50,000 agreement with Experian for address data from a tool built for debt collectors. The data was not supposed to be the final word — counties were meant to weigh it with death records, Social Security records and the change-of-address database. Some of it was wrong. An Oktibbeha County official confirmed records known to be inaccurate because local workers recognized the voters. A longtime Chickasaw County voter was told he lived in another county he had never moved to — apparently because of a car loan he co-signed for his sister in Lee County. Experian says its tool was never designed to validate voter records and it has provided no services to Mississippi since early 2025. The Secretary of State’s office later said it had moved to a different data provider and would not say when.

“A significant portion of ‘affidavit ballots’ were because a large number of people were wrongly removed from the voter rolls,” one commenter in r/mississippi, jaywaykil, wrote on Thursday. “Those same people will now have the opportunity to cure their ballot and provide proof of their identity.” Another, Secure-Rooster-583, on Friday night: “The news is good but it ain’t over! Every citizen that voted via affidavit because they didn’t have a valid ID or had another issue needs to go and cure their ballot.” A third, wigsbymoira: “Have always taken my duty to vote seriously, but also always felt like it was just symbolic. I am so happy to finally have a vote that MATTERS!”

Mike Hurst, the state Republican chairman, called the affidavit numbers “very abnormal in any race that we’ve seen in Mississippi’s history” — but when asked, he could not say what a normal number was. Hyde-Smith’s campaign says thousands of votes remain to be counted from dozens of Republican counties. She declared victory on Tuesday night, before the count was complete; Colom’s reply was “Bless her heart.” On Friday he asked, “Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith? Why can’t she speak for herself? What is her path for victory? She doesn’t have one.” The voters in the threads are not waiting for the officials to settle the pile — they are telling each other to cure their ballots before the deadline. A fourth commenter in r/mississippi, sheltonchoked, put the wait the way the voters see it: “It won’t be called until after all the mail in ballots are in, and those have until the 10th to show up. Meanwhile expect lawsuits and propaganda from the GOP.”

There is no recount in the Mississippi Senate race. The Secretary of State’s office confirmed to ABC News that candidates cannot request one and none is triggered automatically; recounts happen only by court order. The strongest coverage of the race got that wrong — the Sunday Guardian called a recount “virtually certain” and said state law lets a losing candidate request one when the margin falls within a threshold. The only path open to a losing candidate is a ballot-box examination under state law, or an election contest. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already written to all 82 counties demanding the affidavit ballots be separated and preserved as evidence. Colom’s lawyers replied that the demand has “no basis in Mississippi law” and would breach ballot secrecy. The state party has deployed more than 50 volunteer lawyers and observers. No lawsuit has been filed.

The mail ballots still arriving were postmarked by Election Day and can arrive within five business days — a rule the Republican National Committee and the Mississippi Republican Party sued to overturn in 2024. The Supreme Court upheld it 5–4 in June, with Justice Barrett writing for the majority. The state party chairman who led that challenge now says the count is “far from being over”, while the ballots keep arriving under the rule he tried to kill. About 3,300 mail ballots were still outstanding on Thursday, and they can arrive until 5 p.m. Tuesday, November 10. The affidavit ballots — the Secretary of State’s office estimated between 12,000 and 20,000 — are still being processed; about 6,900 had been checked by Thursday evening and roughly four in five accepted. Counties certify by November 13. The Secretary of State’s formal declaration comes December 3.

Hyde-Smith raised more over the whole cycle — $6.28 million against Colom’s $4.40 million through October 14. But in the last three months Colom outraised her, $1.45 million to $864,000, with 3,129 contributions to her 787 and a median gift of $100 against her $500. On advertising, Colom outspent her $4.6 million to $3.2 million.

Kalshi gave Hyde-Smith 87 to 90 percent through October — the same months Colom was outraising her. The odds flipped to Colom at midnight on election night, and by Thursday afternoon the market had Colom at 97.3 percent on Kalshi and 97.2 percent on Polymarket, with more than $35 million wagered between them.

In Hinds County, the affidavit ballots are reviewed in public meetings, the commissioners going through them in front of anyone who comes to watch. Colom leads there by about 47,000 votes, and the county’s election commissioners are still working through the pile.