Incumbent U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi secured victory in Tuesday’s Republican primary election, defeating physician Sarah Adlakha with 80.8% of the vote to Adlakha’s 19.2%, advancing her bid for a second full term in the Senate.
Hyde-Smith will now face Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom in November, who won the Democratic primary with 73.2% of the vote over teacher Priscilla Williams-Till (18.4%) and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Albert Littell (8.4%).
The general election matchup follows a three-year rift between Hyde-Smith and former President Joe Biden’s nomination of Colom to serve as a U.S. District Court judge—a lifetime appointment. Under Senate tradition, judicial nominees typically advance only after their home-state senators return “blue slips” approving the pick.
State Senator Roger Wicker approved Colom’s nomination, as did two previous Republican governors: Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant.
Hyde-Smith first entered the Senate in 2018 following a special election after Mississippi’s senior senator, Thad Cochran, retired. She later secured a full six-year term in 2020 with 54.1% of the vote. A native of Brookhaven, Hyde-Smith served as Mississippi’s agriculture and commerce commissioner from 2012 to 2018 and represented the state’s 39th District in the Senate for over a decade.
Mississippi, a reliably Republican state in federal elections, has provided Hyde-Smith with an early advantage heading into November.
