Mississippi · Senate

Who is running?

Scott Colom (Democratic), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Republican), Ty Pinkins (Independent). The margin below is Scott Colom minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.

The race, in brief

This is the 2026 Senate election in Mississippi, held on November 3, 2026. The state profile on file records a black share of 0.4, a white non-Hispanic share of 0.6, a college share of 0.2 and a median household income of 54915.0. The text notes that Democrats have not won a Senate election in Mississippi since 1982.

Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is seeking a second full term. She won the March 10 primary with 80.8% over physician Sarah Adlakha. The Democratic nominee is Scott Colom, district attorney for the 16th Judicial District since 2016, who won 72.9% against Priscilla Williams-Till (18.6%) and Albert Littell (8.5%). Ty Pinkins, the Democrats' 2024 Senate nominee, left the Democratic primary and is running as an Independent. As of June 30, 2026 Hyde-Smith had raised $5,458,311 with $2,535,895 on hand, Colom $2,384,921 with $847,045, and Pinkins $98,038 with $5,352.

Every rater listed calls the race R, among them the Cook Political Report (September 23, 2026), Inside Elections (September 17, 2026) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 22, 2026). The text lists statewide polls, all from Democratic-affiliated firms: Data for Progress (August 5–15, 2026) had Hyde-Smith 44%, Colom 38%, Pinkins 7%; Impact Research (April 8–12, 2026) had Hyde-Smith 42%, Colom 39%, Pinkins 6%.

A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.

The facts, each beside its sentence

Not in the source: The forecast rows carry no `basis` field, so the input does not say whether the model used the statewide polls listed in the text.; facts.candidates marks Hyde-Smith as incumbent: false, while the text calls her the Republican incumbent.; No presidential results or previous Senate result for the state are given in the text.; Ratings are given only as 'R', with no Lean/Likely/Safe detail.; The polling tables have unlabelled second rows (e.g. 47%/41%/12%) whose meaning the text does not state.; Endorsement sections are empty in the text.

Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 2ea72d35118f; written by claude-opus-5-5 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.

Who holds the seat now

Roger F. Wicker (Republican), in this chamber since 2007, 4 terms, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Armed Services (Chairman); Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; Senate Committee on Rules and Administration; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Ex Officio); Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Cochairman).

Cindy Hyde-Smith (Republican), in this chamber since 2018, 3 terms, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Senate Committee on Appropriations; Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; Senate Committee on Rules and Administration; Joint Committee of Congress on the Library.

From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.

The money

FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $2,382,749 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.

How it has voted for president

A shift of 5.0 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.

The state in numbers

ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.

Who is ahead, and by how much?

Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.

How likely is each to win?

Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.

How wide is the range?

Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -27.3 and +6.8 points. Election day: -31.6 to +4.9. The election-day interval is 2.5 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.

What is the uncertainty made of?

Total sd 11.16 points, made of latent opinion 62%, race-specific polling error 20%, drift to election day 13%, correlated polling error 5%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.

What evidence is this built on?

3 polls, most recent 2026-08-15. every input is provisional.

What changed since the last run?

Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Scott Colom ahead of Cindy Hyde-Smith. Over 15 stored forecasts the central estimate moved -6.0 points. There were 6 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.

Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.

Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.

How has this model done before?

Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.

Where did every number come from?

Nowcast run 593f19ef-caee-4600-b0a7-51754cc05e6d and election-day run 79f4c90c-aebc-45b5-a3c5-7566949cfbe8, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.