A Senate race that was supposed to be a safe Republican hold has turned into one of the tightest contests of the US midterm elections: Democratic challenger Scott Corum has edged ahead of incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, leading by just 43 votes out of nearly a million ballots cast.
The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1982, and the outcome could mark a historic shift in a Deep South state that has voted reliably Republican for a generation.
The current count
As of Wednesday morning, with approximately 95.6% of votes tallied:
Scott Corum (Democrat): 462,821 votes
Cindy Hyde-Smith (Republican): 462,778 votes
Margin: 43 votes in Corum's favour
Ty Pinkins (Independent): approximately 19,935 votes
How the Democrat closed the gap
Hyde-Smith led for most of election night. The race turned when results began arriving from Hinds County, home to the state capital Jackson, and from other counties with large Black populations. Corum won Hinds County by a margin of roughly 61,800 to 14,700, and posted similarly strong numbers in Claiborne and Jefferson counties.
The late-reporting urban and majority-Black counties provided the votes that erased Hyde-Smith's earlier lead and put Corum narrowly ahead.
Thousands of ballots still to be counted
The race remains too close to call. Thousands of affidavit ballots, votes cast provisionally and requiring verification before they can be added to the final tally, are still being processed. Officials say the review could take up to five days.
The final result will depend on how those ballots break, and whether Corum's 43-vote margin holds or evaporates.
Trump, Clinton and Harris all campaigned in Mississippi
The race drew national attention in its final weeks. President Donald Trump travelled to Mississippi on 26 October to rally for Hyde-Smith, seeking to shore up what was thought to be a secure Republican seat.
Democrats responded with their own high-profile surrogates: former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris both campaigned in the state for Corum.
What a Corum win would mean
If Corum's lead survives the final count, the result would carry two historic distinctions:
He would be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi since John Stennis won his final term in 1982, ending a Republican hold on the state's Senate seats that has lasted more than four decades.
And he would be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Blanche Bruce, who was elected in 1874 during Reconstruction,150 years ago.
