Scott Colom holds a 2,607-vote advantage over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith with an estimated 97% of ballots counted, representing a 0.27 percentage point margin. Decisive tallies arrived as Tuesday marked the final deadline for resolving provisional ballots and processing valid mail-in absentee votes. Meanwhile, the uncalled Alaska race sees Democrat Mary Peltola leading incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan by 1.1 percentage points. If no Alaska candidate crosses the 50% threshold, that race will advance to ranked-choice tabulation after eliminating lower-tier contenders.
Key points
Democrats have secured a Senate majority of at least 54 seats after flipping seven Republ…: Democrats have secured a Senate majority of at least 54 seats after flipping seven Republican-held seats.
Mississippi and Alaska remain the final two uncalled United States Senate races in the co…: Mississippi and Alaska remain the final two uncalled United States Senate races in the country.
A Colom victory would install Mississippi's first Black United States senator since the p…: A Colom victory would install Mississippi's first Black United States senator since the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
Democratic nominee Scott Colom added slightly to his narrow lead over incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi Senate election as two key ballot deadlines hit Tuesday.
Colom, a local district attorney, as of 4:30 p.m. ET, was ahead of Hyde-Smith by 2,607 votes, out of 953,547 votes counted, with an estimated 97% of the votes in, according to the Associated Press. That's a margin of just .27 percentage points.
Independent candidate Ty Pinkins had 20,034 votes.
Tuesday is the deadline for resolving so-called affidavit or provisional ballots, which are cast by voters whose eligibility is disputed or unclear on Election Day. It is also the deadline for the receipt of mail-in absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3.
Mississippi is one of just two states whose Senate election has not been called. Alaska is the other.
Democrats so far have flipped seven Senate seats held by Republicans going into the election. That gives Democrats a new majority in the Senate of at least 54 seats in the 100-member chamber come January.
Heightened security concerns have prompted protective relocations for senior American leadership as tensions with Tehran escalate. The protective measures follow intelligence assessments indicating that hostile foreign operations against government officials have progressed significantly. The situation underscores the severe personal risks facing high-ranking cabinet members amidst ongoing geopolitical friction.
Federal prosecutors linked the three operatives to nearly 20 international attacks and attempted operations supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kataib Hezbollah. The foiled conspiracy prompted the United States military to withdraw all of its B-1 bombers from the British installation to protect strategic assets. One of the dual-national defendants remains in federal custody in New York facing prior terrorism-related charges, while the locations of his two co-conspirators have not been publicly rev…
Congressional lawmakers halted an effort to remove United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from his cabinet post. The challenge was mounted over a series of controversial foreign military operations and interventions executed under his leadership. The legislative intervention successfully shields the defense chief from formal removal proceedings tied to these contentious global actions.