The Mississippi Senate race may take days to resolve, as Democrat Scott Colom leads GOP Sen.Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 65 votes in the current vote count.And as more votes continue to be counted, all eyes are on an unknown number of ballots that could shift the result — and potentially lead to a very murky recount process.
Mississippi has not been a site of close vote counts and postelection drama in recent years.But Colom’s strong showing comes as Democrats swept several Senate races in red states across the country.
While Democrats have a Senate majority without flipping Mississippi, it could be the party’s reddest pickup.And it would mark another victory in a string of wins in the South, including in Texas and South Carolina, after years of struggle for Democrats in the region.National operatives are descending on the state, with staff from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Elias Law Group on the ground as of Wednesday to lead the Democratic effort to ensure votes are counted, according to a source familiar with the effort who was granted anonymity to discuss legal strategy.A partner with the Elias Law Group, which has served as the Colom campaign’s lawyers, told NBC News they were heading to Mississippi to investigate the outstanding vote.“We’re prepared to litigate, though we were prepared for this for months,” Colom, a local prosecutor, said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
“We have an army of lawyers.We have local lawyers.
We have everybody involved to make sure the process is followed according to the law.”Colom and Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, Jake Monssen, both said Wednesday that there are “thousands” of outstanding ballots.But the exact number remains unclear.
There appear to be around 6,000 mail ballots that were distributed but had not yet been returned as of Monday, according to data from the Mississippi secretary of state’s office, which did not return a request for comment.Mail ballots postmarked...