Mississippi voters will choose among Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, Democrat Scott Colom, and independent Ty Pinkins in the 2026 U.S. Senate election.
All three candidates present relatively clear choices. After reviewing their records, positions and prospects, the Centrist Independent Voter endorses Scott Colom.
This was not an automatic choice between a Republican and a Democrat. Pinkins offers an intriguing independent alternative, particularly because of his interest in creating a genuinely independent bloc in the United States Senate. We take that possibility seriously.
But two considerations ultimately lead us to Colom. First, Colom appears to have a substantially greater chance of actually defeating Hyde-Smith. Second, while we like Pinkins’s idea of using an independent Senate bloc to reform the institution, we are considerably less enthusiastic about his proposal to use that leverage to advance policies well to our left.
Most importantly, we believe Cindy Hyde-Smith should not be returned to the United States Senate.
The Electoral College Vote
The most important reason for rejecting Hyde-Smith is her conduct following the 2020 presidential election.
After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Hyde-Smith voted against certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Only six senators supported the Arizona objection and seven supported the Pennsylvania objection. Hyde-Smith was among them.
This was not an ordinary disagreement over public policy. Donald Trump had lost the election. Courts had rejected challenges to the results, state officials had certified them, and Congress had a constitutional responsibility to complete the peaceful transfer of power.
Hyde-Smith nevertheless voted to reject valid electoral votes.
For the Centrist Independent Voter, respect for legitimate election results is a basic qualification for federal office.
Ukraine and American Leadership
Hyde-Smith’s record on Ukraine has also been less reliable than we would like.
In February 2024, she voted against a $95 billion national-security package that included approximately $60 billion for Ukraine. Mississippi’s other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, voted for it. Hyde-Smith said she would not support the foreign-aid package without additional action on the U.S. border.
To her credit, Hyde-Smith subsequently voted for the final national-security supplemental in April 2024. That package, which also included substantial assistance for Ukraine, passed the Senate 79–18.
Nevertheless, Wicker has been a much more consistent and forceful supporter of Ukraine and American international leadership. In supporting the April package, he explicitly connected events in Kyiv, Tel Aviv and Taipei and argued that American resolve today would shape deterrence in the decades ahead.
We strongly support Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression and believe continued American support serves important U.S. national-security interests. Russia’s invasion is not simply a regional dispute. The outcome will affect the credibility of Western alliances and the willingness of other authoritarian powers, including China, to use military force against their neighbors.
We believe Wicker has the better judgment.
A Record of Deference to Trump
Political parties naturally contain disagreements, and we do not oppose senators simply because they support a president whose policies we dislike. Senators of both parties normally support most of a president’s nominees and much of a president’s agenda.
The more important question is whether a senator is willing to exercise independent judgment when important constitutional or institutional issues are at stake. One test is how a senator responds when a president asks the Senate to confirm unusually problematic nominees.
These nominees were not normal. They presented a mix of inadequate qualifications, questionable competence, and, in some cases, views or records that seemed counterproductive to the missions of the organizations they were nominated to oversee.
Hyde-Smith supported several of President Trump’s most controversial nominees even when other Republican senators refused to do so. She voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense when Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell opposed him. The Senate divided 50–50, requiring Vice President JD Vance to cast the deciding vote. She voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services when McConnell opposed both nominations. She also voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director when Collins and Murkowski voted no.
The pattern continued in August 2026, when Hyde-Smith voted to elevate Todd Blanche to Attorney General. Blanche had previously represented Donald Trump in three criminal cases and had served as Deputy Attorney General. Collins and Murkowski both opposed his promotion. Collins, who had supported Blanche for Deputy Attorney General, said his subsequent actions had further eroded the Justice Department’s independence. Blanche was confirmed by the narrowest possible margin, 50–49. Hyde-Smith voted yes.
The same lack of independence appears when the issue is Congress’s own constitutional authority.
In April 2025, Hyde-Smith opposed a Senate resolution terminating the emergency declaration Trump used to impose tariffs on Canada. The resolution nevertheless passed 51–48 after Republican Senators Collins, McConnell, Murkowski and Rand Paul joined Democrats.
In October 2025, she again voted against terminating an emergency declaration Trump was using to impose global tariffs. The Senate again acted on a bipartisan basis, 51–47, with Collins, McConnell, Murkowski and Paul voting to terminate the emergency. These votes also put Hyde-Smith at odds with our view that Congress should exercise greater control over tariffs rather than allowing presidents to impose them broadly through emergency powers.
War powers present the same constitutional question in an even more consequential form. On March 4, 2026, Hyde-Smith voted against an effort to advance a resolution directing the removal of American forces from hostilities against Iran that had not been authorized by Congress. Republican Senator Rand Paul joined Democrats in supporting the measure.
Hyde-Smith defended her vote by asserting that the War Powers Act authorized the president to conduct the operation for “a minimum of 60 days, with the option to extend.” That interpretation became even more troubling as the conflict continued. After a ceasefire and then renewed fighting, the administration notified Congress in July that hostilities had resumed and treated the renewed fighting as beginning another 60-day period in which the president could act without congressional authorization.
Taken to its logical conclusion, that interpretation threatens to make the War Powers Act almost evergreen: fighting can begin, pause for negotiations or a ceasefire, resume, and generate another claimed period of unilateral presidential authority. Senator Adam Schiff challenged precisely that interpretation after the fighting resumed, arguing that the president could not simply claim another 60 days each time hostilities restarted.
A law intended to limit the president’s ability to conduct prolonged hostilities without congressional authorization should not become the mechanism for perpetually renewing that authority.
None of these votes, standing alone, would determine our view of a senator. Taken together, however—and considered alongside Hyde-Smith’s votes to reject valid electoral votes after the 2020 election and her willingness to vote against major aid for Ukraine—they show a consistent reluctance to challenge Donald Trump even when other Republican senators were willing to bear the political costs of doing so.
Those are precisely the circumstances in which we look to members of the United States Senate to exercise independent judgment and defend their own and the Senate’s constitutional responsibilities.
Why Scott Colom
Colom has served as district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Circuit Court District since 2016. His record there is one of the strongest affirmative arguments for his candidacy.
Colom has tried to combine toughness toward violent crime with alternatives to incarceration for first-time, nonviolent offenders. His office has expanded pretrial diversion, drug treatment and rehabilitation while aggressively prosecuting violent criminals. His office reports a conviction rate above 95 percent, while also expanding pretrial diversion for first-time nonviolent offenders. That is not simply a Senate campaign position; it is an approach he has followed for a decade as a prosecutor.
Voters have repeatedly approved of that record. Colom first won the office in 2015 by defeating a long-serving incumbent, was unopposed in 2019, and won a contested reelection in 2023 with more than 56 percent of the vote.
There is also unusually strong evidence that Colom commands respect across party lines. President Biden nominated him in 2022 to become a federal district judge in northern Mississippi. Republican Senator Roger Wicker supported the nomination and returned the required “blue slip.” Former Republican Governors Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant also supported Colom’s elevation to the federal bench.
Wicker’s explanation is particularly noteworthy. He said that “quite a lot of mainstream Mississippi Republicans” regarded Colom as a strong law-and-order prosecutor. Republican Congressman Trent Kelly, who represents much of Colom’s district, also supported his judicial nomination, as did at least nine local law-enforcement leaders.
Colom has also offered some evidence that his willingness to cross party lines is more than campaign rhetoric. As district attorney, he investigated a sitting sheriff who was a fellow Democrat after allegations that the sheriff had abused his office. The investigation ultimately led to criminal accountability. Colom points to that case as evidence that party affiliation should not determine whether public officials are held accountable.
On national policy, Colom opposes President Trump’s broad tariffs and has argued that Congress should reclaim its constitutional authority over both trade and war. He describes himself as personally pro-life while saying that he trusts women to make their own reproductive decisions and supports access to IVF.
We disagree with Colom on some issues. He has proposed exempting teachers and police officers earning less than $75,000 from federal income taxes. We regard that as poor policy: our approach to taxation favors a broader tax base and fewer special preferences.
Colom’s opposition to H-1B1 skilled-worker visas also conflicts with our support for expanded merit-based immigration. He argues that companies should not displace American workers with foreign workers and that those jobs should instead come to Mississippi. We understand the concern but believe attracting skilled immigrants generally benefits the United States.
We have also not found a sufficiently clear public statement from Colom on Ukraine and NATO. Given the importance we attach to resisting Russian aggression and maintaining credible alliances in evaluating candidates for the United States Senate, we would prefer that he make his position clear. This remains a significant reservation about his candidacy.
But an endorsement does not require agreement on every issue. Colom’s record as a prosecutor, his demonstrated cross-party credibility, his willingness to hold members of his own party accountable and his emphasis on restoring Congress’s constitutional responsibilities provide substantial affirmative reasons to support him.
The Case for Ty Pinkins
Ty Pinkins made this decision more difficult.
Pinkins, running as an independent, served 21 years in the Army, including three combat tours, and later earned law degrees from Georgetown, including an LLM in national-security law. He strongly supports Ukraine and NATO and combines support for border security with legal status for long-term undocumented residents.
His independence also appears to be more than a ballot designation. Pinkins has said explicitly that, if elected, he would caucus with neither Republicans nor Democrats. He has been discussing with several other independent Senate candidates the creation of what they call a Fulcrum Caucus that could bargain with the two parties over organization of the Senate, committee representation, floor rights and other institutional reforms.
That idea appeals to us.
If several genuinely independent senators were elected and neither major party could organize the chamber without them, they could potentially use their leverage to force greater sharing of power, protect bipartisan legislation, expand opportunities for amendments and strengthen Congress as an institution. We have endorsed other independent candidates in part because we believe such a bloc could give centrist and independent voters genuine institutional power.
But there is an important distinction between using the balance of power to reform the institution and using it to advance an ideological policy agenda.
Pinkins has proposed doing both. His list of possible conditions for helping either party organize the Senate includes institutional reforms, but also substantive policies such as universal health care and universal child care. Those positions go considerably beyond our health-care approach and place him noticeably to our left.
That diminishes, for us, much of the attraction of the Fulcrum strategy.
If Pinkins proposed using the leverage of a Fulcrum Caucus primarily to achieve organizational and institutional reforms rather than to advance left-wing policy priorities, and if he appeared to be the stronger candidate to defeat Hyde-Smith, we would be inclined to endorse him.
But neither appears to be the case.
Electability Matters Here
Mississippi remains difficult territory for any candidate running against a Republican incumbent. We do not pretend otherwise. Major election handicappers continue to place the race firmly in the Republican column.
But there is a meaningful difference between being an underdog and having little visible path to victory.
A Data for Progress poll of 1,018 likely Mississippi voters, conducted August 5–15, found Hyde-Smith leading Colom 44 percent to 38 percent, with Pinkins at 7 percent. The survey was sponsored by Way to Lead PAC, Democracy Alliance and Democracy Strategy Partners, so it deserves appropriate caution. But an April Impact Research poll sponsored by the SPLC Action Fund produced a strikingly similar three-way result: Hyde-Smith 42 percent, Colom 39 percent, and Pinkins 6 percent.
Colom remains a long shot. But his candidacy has attracted enough attention that Mississippi is now being discussed among Republican-held Senate seats worth watching in an unusually difficult midterm environment for the governing party. Axios recently described Mississippi as a longer-shot Democratic opportunity but reported that Colom had outraised Hyde-Smith during the second quarter and was trying to make the state competitive.
Pinkins may possess an intriguing theory of how an independent senator could change the institution. Colom presently possesses something Pinkins does not: a plausible, if difficult, route to becoming that senator.
Our Endorsement
There is much about Ty Pinkins that we admire, particularly his military service, his support for Ukraine and his attempt to build something genuinely independent of the two-party system.
But endorsements require choices.
The institutional advantages of a possible Fulcrum Caucus are not enough to overcome both Pinkins’s substantially more left-wing policy agenda and the large difference between the two challengers in demonstrated electoral support.
Scott Colom is not a perfect match for the Centrist Independent Voter. Few candidates are.
But he has demonstrated that he can govern pragmatically, earn support across party lines, distinguish violent criminals from people who can benefit from rehabilitation, hold members of his own party accountable and recognize the importance of Congress reclaiming powers that presidents of both parties have accumulated.
Against an incumbent whose record repeatedly demonstrates deference to Donald Trump at the expense of independent senatorial judgment, those qualities matter enormously.
The Centrist Independent Voter endorses Scott Colom for the United States Senate from Mississippi.