Mississippi's Senate race sits at 43 votes, with Scott Colom ahead of Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and thousands of affidavit ballots still to count

A Senate seat Republicans expected to hold without trouble has come down to a margin smaller than a precinct. The AP count on Wednesday morning put Colom, a district attorney, at 462,821 votes and Hyde-Smith at 462,778, both at 48.9 percent. Independent Ty Pinkins had 19,935 votes, about 2.1 percent, which is more than four hundred times the gap between the two leaders.

Neither candidate claimed victory on election night. Hyde-Smith told her supporters she was in a good position and wanted to wait for all the votes. Colom said he believed Mississippi was about to show the country something. Hinds County, which holds the state capital, Jackson, paused its count overnight, and the Colom campaign put the number of affidavit ballots still to be reviewed across the state at up to 15,000. Affidavit ballots are cast by voters whose eligibility has to be checked before the ballot counts, and that review can take days. Mississippi also has five more business days to receive absentee ballots that were mailed on time.

There will be no runoff. Mississippi's runoff rules apply to primaries and to special elections, and a general election for federal office is won by the candidate with the most votes, even if that candidate stays under 50 percent. The state has no automatic recount law either. A candidate who wants a recount has to ask a judge for one, and a margin of 43 votes out of nearly a million makes that request likely whichever way the remaining ballots break.

If Colom's lead holds, he would be the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Mississippi since John Stennis in 1982. The seat does not change control of the Senate, which the AP has already called for the Democrats, but it decides whether their majority grows by one more seat.