Democratic challenger Scott Colom's chances of unseating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith jumped to 92% on Kalshi Wednesday morning, as he held a 43-vote lead in a Mississippi Senate race that remains too close to call. His price has dropped to 89% as the time of this writing.

With 95.6% of the vote counted, Colom had 462,821 votes to Hyde-Smith's 462,778, each at 48.9%. Before polls opened, traders gave Colom roughly a 15% chance.

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How the market moved

Hyde-Smith was favored on Kalshi all cycle. Traders priced her near 89% in the final week as President Donald Trump rallied for her in Corinth, and Kalshi's polling average had her about 5 points ahead.

Election night flipped the race. Colom's odds fell as low as 9% around midnight ET, then surged to 60% by 1 a.m. as late returns came in from Hinds County and majority-Black counties in the Delta and Southwest Mississippi. He moved ahead in the vote count shortly after midnight Central time and reached 84% by Wednesday morning before climbing to 92%.

Colom's odds rose from 84% to 92% late Wednesday morning, around the time he told reporters at a press conference in Mississippi that he is "very confident we are going to win," according to Burgess Everett. "Anybody who can look at the math can tell where this is going," Colom said, adding that his campaign would "finish the job by doing our part to protect the process."

Kalshi's margin market now forecasts a Colom win of less than half a point.

Why it matters

A Colom win would be the eighth Senate seat Democrats have flipped this cycle, in a state Trump carried by more than 20 points in 2024. Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since John Stennis in 1982, and Colom would be the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction.

The race is also a rematch of sorts: Hyde-Smith blocked President Joe Biden's 2023 nomination of Colom to a federal judgeship.

The bottom line on the Mississippi Senate race

With nearly all votes counted, Kalshi traders give Scott Colom an 89% chance of winning Mississippi's Senate race, up from about 15% before Election Day. The race may not be called for several days as affidavit ballots are counted, and with no automatic recount law, either candidate could ask a judge for a recount if the margin stays this close.

The takeaway:

Kalshi traders currently price:

  • Scott Colom (D) winning the Mississippi Senate race: 89%

  • Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) winning the Mississippi Senate race: 11%

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