00:02A Democrat is leading the Senate race in Deep Red, Mississippi by just over 1,000 votes.
00:08And with ballots still being counted, this one is far from over. Democrat Scott Colombe
00:13is holding a narrow lead over Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. A race that wasn't expected
00:18to be this close is now one of the last undecided contests of the midterms, and the stakes are big.
00:24Mississippi hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982. A Colombe victory
00:29would also make him the state's first black senator since Reconstruction. Hyde-Smith had
00:34President Trump's endorsement. But in a state Trump won by more than 20 points just two
00:39years ago, that hasn't been enough to put her over the top. Now comes the wait. Election
00:44officials are still counting provisional ballots and mail-in votes, and some mail ballots can
00:49still arrive through November 10, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Here's
00:54where things get interesting. Mississippi has no automatic recount, and candidates can't
00:59simply request one. They can examine ballot materials and challenge results in court, but
01:04for now, Colombe says he's confident.
01:07I gotta tell everybody I am very happy with where we stand. I'm confident, I'm confident
01:13once the process lays out where we are, where the ballots are, we're gonna win. The
01:19bottom line is, this is the beginning of a new direction for our state. We are going
01:25to win this. We have already showed the country that Mississippi matters, y'all.
01:31And both sides are preparing for a possible legal fight. Democrats have sent legal support
01:36to Mississippi, and Colombe says his campaign has what he calls an army of lawyers ready to
01:42protect the vote.
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