U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., addresses supporters at her victory party in Flowood, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. MFP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith expressed positivity about her winning the election in a rare hallway interview with reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning. Hyde-Smith is still trailing Scott Colom by more than 2,500 votes as of Tuesday afternoon.
“People vote with their wallets, and gas prices are high. Mississippi, like I said, we’ve got a lot of votes still out and we’re counting and we hope to come back to represent them the way that we have,” Hyde-Smith told reporters in a clip posted on X.
“We’ve got few thousand (votes) out, so we’re feeling very optimistic,” Hyde-Smith told CBS News Political Correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns in another hallway interview on Tuesday. Huey-Burns then asked the Mississippi senator why the race was so close between her and Scott Colom, but she didn’t respond and walked into a private office with members of her staff trailing close by.
State Reporter Heather Harrison has won more than a dozen awards for her multi-media journalism work. At Mississippi State University, she studied public relations and broadcast journalism, earning her Communication degree in 2023. For three years, Heather worked at The Reflector student newspaper: first as a staff reporter, then as the news editor and finally, as the editor-in-chief. This is where her passion for politics and government reporting began.
Heather started working at the Mississippi Free Press three days after graduation in 2023. She also worked part time for Starkville Daily News after college covering the Board of Aldermen meetings.
In her free time, Heather likes to sit on the porch, read books and listen to Taylor Swift. A native of Hazlehurst, she now lives in Brandon with her wife and their Boston Terrier, Finley, and calico cat, Ravioli.
