WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is being challenged by Democrat Scott Colom as she seeks a second full term. Voters on Tuesday will also decide contests for U.S. House and two state House special elections.
Although no federal office has changed party hands in Mississippi since 2010, the Senate matchup been more competitive than expected, even drawing a campaign visit from President Donald Trump.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:
Polls close at 7 p.m. local time, which is 8 p.m. ET.
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and two special elections for state House.
About 709,000 ballots were cast in the 2022 midterm elections in Mississippi.
About 7% of the ballots cast in the 2022 midterm election were absentee ballots.
The latest advance vote totals for Mississippi can be found in the AP’s advance vote tracker.
Mississippi voters tend to vote in-person on Election Day. The state offers limited in-person absentee and mail absentee voting. All counties are expected to release at least some in-person Election Day results in the first vote update of the night. The limited amount of mail and in-person absentee results are expected to be released throughout the night.
In the 2024 general election, the AP first reported results at 8:19 p.m. ET, or 19 minutes after polls closed. The vote count reached the halfway mark at 10:06 p.m. ET and 90% of total votes were reported by 9:49 a.m. ET on Nov. 8, 2024.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
Mississippi does not have automatic recounts or permit candidates to request a recount. Recounts in the state are held only in the event of a court order. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
President Donald Trump shares a moment with U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on stage during a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (Dan Busey/The TimesDaily via AP)
Christa Pike said Friday she remains in constant pain, struggles to speak and has been largely isolated in a prison hospital after surviving a lethal injection in Tennessee last month.
In her first public statement since, Pike said she's “deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.”
“I continue to think about my victim’s family,” she said, “and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
Pike and her boyfriend tortured and stabbed a 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, to death in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time, making her one of the youngest women sentenced to death. Slemmer’s mother traveled from Florida to witness Pike’s execution.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital that her lawyers say probably didn't enter her bloodstream correctly and instead pooled in her arms, leaving them burned and blistered. Unconscious, she was hospitalized on a ventilator for days, and at one point her lawyers said they didn't expect her to survive.
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak,” Pike said. “And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike said she had been prepared to die in peace, but instead woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed. She said she's “searching for meaning in what happened to me.”
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next,” Pike said in a statement dictated to her legal team from prison.
Pike remains sentenced to die, and her attorneys want Republican Gov. Bill Lee to change that to life in prison. However, Lee told reporters this week, “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
The governor has tapped a former U.S. attorney to conduct an independent review of the failed execution, and postponed the state’s other lethal injection scheduled for this year.
Pike's attorneys, meanwhile, asked a federal judge Friday to allow her to interact with other prisoners instead of being isolated in the infirmary. They said her isolation violates a 2024 agreement that ended her mostly solitary confinement and allowed her to work, eat, exercise and have social contact with other women.
“Her renewed isolation has caused, and will continue to cause, significant psychological harm and trauma,” Pike's legal team wrote.
Pike's lethal injection was plagued by problems. Her attorneys had warned that her small veins and diagnosis of thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting disorder, could make IV access difficult.
In a court document, her attorney Randy Spivey said the execution team struggled to get working IV lines in Pike’s arms and expressed concern that a vein might be “blowing.” Pike remained awake for much of the lethal injection, saying her arm hurt and burned before falling unconscious. The execution began just before 7:30 p.m. and an ambulance arrived at the prison about an hour and 45 minutes later.
The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.
In a 2025 deposition released with court documents this week, prison Warden Kenneth Nelson said the execution team doesn't practice inserting IV lines during training sessions, at the directive of the prison commissioner. Nelson said he did not know why the practice was discontinued or when the order was given.
Practicing insertion of IVs was part of Tennessee’s prior execution protocol, but it is not included in the state’s new protocol.
Dorinda Carter, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction, said she could not comment on the filing because of pending litigation.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, announced his resignation in the wake of Pike's failed execution. The governor named Christopher Hansen as interim commissioner.
FILE - In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP, File)
FILE- This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)
