Mississippi Democrats turned out in large numbers in the March 10 midterm primaries, nearly matching the total number of Republican votes cast for U.S. Senate hopefuls. The surge in voting comes as Democrat Scott Colom hopes to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in November’s general election.
Vote tallies from the Associated Press show that over 146,300 people voted in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary with about 94% of votes counted; in the Republican primary, over 156,600 people voted with about 96% of votes counted. The final tallies will likely be about 156,000 Democratic votes cast and around 163,000 Republican votes cast, or an estimated 7,000-vote gap.
In 2018, the last time a Mississippi Senate seat was up in a non-presidential year, just 87,931 Democrats voted in the U.S. Senate primary, despite a crowded field with six candidates. The Republican primary, which featured incumbent Sen. Roger Wicker and challenger Richard Boyanton, drew 157,170 voters to the polls.
Colom, who defeated his two opponents in the Democratic primary on Tuesday with about 73% of the vote, touted the surge in Democratic voters as a sign that his campaign can compete in November.
“Scott Colom won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Mississippi Tuesday night, and he enters the general election in a stronger position than Cindy Hyde-Smith,” a memo his campaign sent out on Thursday said. “In a state Donald Trump carried by 23 points just 16 months ago, nearly as many Mississippians cast Democratic primary ballots as Republican ones—a sign of Democratic overperformance playing out here just as it is across the country. Tuesday’s results confirm what our campaign has believed from the start: Mississippi is more competitive than Washington insiders assume, Cindy Hyde-Smith is more vulnerable than she lets on, and Scott Colom is the right candidate to make history in November.”
When Hyde-Smith was on the ballot in 2020, around 268,989 Mississippians voted in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary that year, while 235,463 voted in the Republican primary. But presidential candidates were on the primary ballots that year, which always draws more people to the polls, amid a contested Democratic primary. While three Democrats were vying for their party’s nomination that year, Hyde-Smith faced no Republican challenger.
During this year’s Republican primary, Hyde-Smith did face intraparty opposition from Republican Sarah Adlakha, whom the incumbent defeated in an 81%-19% rout.
“Republican turnout stayed essentially flat (from 2018),” Colom’s campaign memo said, “while Democratic turnout nearly doubled. Republicans also outspent Democrats by more than two to one during the primary, and still couldn’t move the needle.”
Hyde-Smith has faced challenging elections before. After then-Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to her U.S. Senate seat in 2018 to fill a vacancy, she faced a tough special election against Democratic former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Amid controversy over remarks she made about a “public hanging,” Hyde-Smith beat Espy 54% to 46%, but it was the closest a Democrat had come to winning a U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi since the 1980s. She defeated Espy again in a 2020 rematch.
In its memo Thursday, Colom’s campaign argued that Mississippi is ripe for Democrats to win if they invest resources in the state. It noted that 37% of Mississippians are Black, making it the highest Black population share in the country.
“With the right candidate, the right message, and the right mobilization, that electorate can power a winning coalition,” the memo said. “… A fully resourced campaign in Mississippi costs a fraction of what it takes in Texas, Michigan or North Carolina.”