What's at stake in Mississippi midterm elections in November?

• Democratic challenger Scott Colom is closing the gap on Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi's U.S. Senate race.
• The race has become increasingly contentious, with both candidates launching personal attacks and attack websites against each other.
• High-profile political figures, including Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have campaigned in the state for their respective candidates.
• Separately, Mississippi Republicans are pushing for congressional redistricting, which could threaten the seat of long-tenured Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson.

As recently as a few months ago, people would have laughed at the thought of Mississippi electing a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Many people did laugh.

But as the midterm elections have crept closer, Democratic challenger Scott Colom has approached Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. An Oct. 22 poll has him trailing her within the margin of error.

Whispers of an upset have grown into election predictors and talk shows thinking out loud about the possibility of Colom in Congress and unprecedented national investment from Democrats into what has long been regarded as one of the country's most reliably red states.

Colom is by no means guaranteed a victory come Nov. 3, but for the first time in what seems like several cycles, neither is his Republican opponent.

Unlike Texas, where polling is a near-daily occurrence in the contentious U.S. Senate race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico, polling in the Magnolia State is far less common, in part because pollsters never thought Mississippi would be in play. Though the Mississippi race has garnered some recent national spotlight, a blue wave striking Mississippi on election night would likely send shockwaves through political circles.

What to watch this election cycle

The race at the forefront of most minds this fall is the U.S. Senate faceoff between Colom and Hyde-Smith, perhaps equally due to the chance of a surprise Democratic win and how the race has grown nasty and viral.

Bad blood between Colom and Hyde-Smith goes back years. When former President Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in 2022 after more than a decade in public service, several of the state's prominent Republicans jumped on board.

Sen. Roger Wicker gave his seal of approval, but Hyde-Smith withheld hers. She had concerns, she said at the time, with Colom's position on transgender children's participation in girls' and women's sports and his connection with billionaire George Soros.

Colom's nomination stalled, despite a letter he wrote to Hyde-Smith asking for her support, and the position remained open until a 2025 appointment from President Donald Trump.

A few years later, Colom launched his run for U.S. Senate. He made it clear from the beginning that the bid was just as much a referendum on Hyde-Smith as it was him seeking the office.

The race has become particularly unpleasant since the 2026 primary elections in March. The pair have come up with nicknames for each other, if the term 'nickname' can be used to describe an insult; Colom dubbed her "Cindy High Prices" and called her "chicken" for refusing to debate him, and Hyde-Smith referred to him as the "transgender defender." When she dropped the name at her Oct. 26 rally with Trump, the arena echoed with boos and jeers.

At the end of August, Hyde-Smith suggested that Colom's supporters may have been involved in a 2023 shooting outside her Brookhaven home. Her opponent, she said, "has got his hands in so many different places," and she has to "be very careful."

She published a website made to look like it belongs to him a little while later. 'ColomForSenate.com,' not to be confused with Colom's own 'ScottColom.com,' was made to broadcast "Scott Colom's true platform and record," according to her team. It takes aim at his tenure as district attorney and campaign events with notable Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, among other things.

He retaliated about a week afterward with 'WhereIsCindyHydeSmith.com,' an "accountability project tracking Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith's record for Mississippi voters." The site highlights what Colom describes as some of her worst voting decisions in Congress and keeps a running count of how much time has elapsed since her last town hall event.

In mid-October came Colom's viral ad prodding at one of Hyde-Smith's interview stumbles. Though beef prices are rising, she acknowledged, Mississippians "have so many proteins to choose from." She doubled down on the sentiment in an Oct. 25 interview with the same television station.

A recording of the earlier clip kicks off an ad where a handful of people say they would "rather pick another senator instead." The video accumulated more than 2.8 million views across X, Facebook and Instagram in the first 36 hours after it was posted.

Hyde-Smith then posted what appears to be a mugshot of a young Colom on her fake website. The mugshot was taken, according to reporting from the Magnolia Tribune, when he was arrested in Columbus at 18 years old.

He told the Clarion Ledger that he stayed out with a 17-year-old friend past curfew and was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but Colom staffers did not confirm that the image was real.

And Attorney General Lynn Fitch waded into the race at the last moment, ordering Colom to take down from social media an AI-generated video of Hyde-Smith fleeing reporter questions. The video, she wrote on Oct. 23, may violate a state law against deepfakes shared ahead of elections.

Both candidates have sought federal support in the final stretch of their campaigns. Colom brought former Vice President Kamala Harris to his alma mater in Columbus on Oct. 22, and Hyde-Smith spoke alongside Trump at an Oct. 26 Corinth rally.

How will redistricting impact Mississippi?

Another notable race is the contest between Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state's longest-tenured federal representative, and Republican Ron Eller. The race is less interesting because of what it is now and more so because of what it may be in 2028.

Many Mississippi politicians are pushing hard for redistricting, and no elected official has been targeted more than Thompson. He is the lone Democrat in Mississippi's congressional federal delegation, and he rose to prominence most recently for his role as the chair of the January 6th Investigation Committee in the U.S. House.

Republicans want him out. The easiest way to unseat him is to redraw his district to favor the Republican Party, a move that Gov. Tate Reeves has described as necessary to end Thompson's "reign of terror." Auditor Shad White used the Oct. 1 redistricting hearing in Jackson to ask state lawmakers to look at congressional redistricting soon.

If Reeves and White get their wish, which is almost guaranteed in the majority-Republican Mississippi Legislature, Thompson could be campaigning in a radically different district come 2028. He is predicted to win his upcoming reelection bid by a landslide, but an altered voting landscape could make the next term his last.

Bea Anhuci is the state government reporter for the Clarion Ledger. She has covered Mississippi politics since the start of 2026. Email her at [email protected].