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Enten calls Colom's Mississippi result a historic Senate upset

The broadcast revisits the decisive Hinds County count and why national Democrats underestimated a race Colom went on to win.

Channel: CNN ·

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Enten unpacks MS race: 'The biggest Senate upset' in the last 20 years

Things we can learn from the video

Press to jump

0:44Colom leads by roughly 3,000 votes; Enten argues that recounts rarely reverse a gap of that size.
2:09Colom's strong Hinds County margin makes the location of outstanding ballots central to assessing Hyde-Smith's chances.
3:40Enten calls a possible Colom victory historic because Mississippi had not elected a Democratic senator since 1982.
5:25Grayer explains the pending county review of affidavit ballots from outside the election building in Jackson.
8:14Brownstein links the surprise to Trump's broader unpopularity and national Democrats' limited attention to the contest.

Mississippi's Senate count was still unresolved when Harry Enten made his case: Scott Colom's narrow advantage could produce an upset far bigger than the margin suggested. Colom has since defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, turning that possibility into a Democratic Senate victory.

The report from US broadcaster Cable News Network (CNN) captures the closing uncertainty. With nearly all precincts reporting, Colom led by roughly 3,000 votes. Enten argued that the gap was substantial by the standards of recounts, while anchor Kate Bolduan noted that Mississippi has no automatic recount law.

The crucial remaining count was in Hinds County, which includes Jackson, the state capital. Colom was receiving nearly four-fifths of the county's vote, making it an important place to look not just for outstanding ballots, but for whether Hyde-Smith could realistically close the gap.

Outside the county election building, reporter Annie Grayer explained that commissioners still needed to review affidavit ballots. These were part of the unfinished process behind the television map. In a recorded interview, Colom sounded ready for a decision: "I think we're in a position where it's going to be very clear that it's time to call it."

Colom, a district attorney since 2016, had challenged a Republican incumbent in a state that Enten said had not elected a Democratic senator since 1982. Enten's description of a potentially historic upset was explicitly about expectations going into the election, not simply the closeness of the result.

Political analyst Ron Brownstein offered a broader explanation. He argued that Donald Trump's declining popularity extended across Republican-leaning states, and that national Democrats' limited attention to Mississippi helped make Colom's performance seem so unexpected. The segment moves from the mechanics of counting ballots to a question for both parties: why had this particular contest been underestimated?

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