Scott Colom's lead stretches in tight Mississippi Senate race

[0:00] And we've got a key race alert. We just got new votes in the razor-thin Mississippi Senate race. [0:06] And what we have is the Democrat Scott Colombe increasing his lead over the Republican Cindy [0:13] Hyde-Smith. He now has a lead just over 1,700 votes. That is an increase by about 600 from [0:21] before. Colombe spoke to reporters earlier today. I knew we were competitive. I wasn't surprised. [0:27] I kept saying months ago, people across the country are going to be surprised, but I'm not going to be [0:31] surprised. Yeah, I'm confident, very confident. I mean, you just got to look at the numbers. [0:34] Anybody out there that does an analysis knows where this is going, right? The affidavit is always [0:38] moving in the Democratic favor in Mississippi. You know, you look at the ballots that are left, [0:44] you know, it's going in our favor. Absolutely. David, he's not wrong. [0:51] That is true. The votes are moving in the favor, in his favor. And you and I were talking yesterday, [0:57] Manu, about the vibes on the GOP side, not all that bullish on keeping this seat. [1:04] Yeah, I've talked to a bunch of Republicans who think that this is going in the wrong direction. [1:08] It was just so stunning. I mean, a couple of weeks before the election, we were hearing that [1:13] Republicans were thinking about investing into Mississippi, and we were told, no, no, no, [1:19] it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. And then the bottom just absolutely fell out of this race. [1:24] Trump had to go. The Democrats put some money in, but they didn't put nearly as much as a lot of the [1:29] supporters wanted them to put in. Behind Scott Colum, the supporters who thought that Colum really [1:34] had a shot, they put a little bit of money in, but nobody thought this. It just shows you how [1:39] lackluster of a candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith was to lose and combine with all the economic factors and the [1:45] strength of Scott Colum's candidacy. And one fun fact, if you want to call it that, [1:50] that I think goes underreported, that Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked Scott Colum from being on [1:57] the federal bench. He was going to be, yeah, he was going to be a judge. And so had she not blocked [2:03] him, maybe she would still be in the Senate. And when Donald Trump went to Mississippi, [2:07] do you remember what he said? She might still be in the Senate, [2:08] but it wouldn't be this close likely. She's fine. She's fine. I'm just here to like [2:13] just double check and make sure, but she's going to be totally fine. Well, the White House was really [2:16] mad at her. They said that she didn't do any fundraising, that she didn't lift a finger on [2:20] that. And they were, I mean, again, all of this goes back to Donald Trump and his policy. [2:24] Mississippi's top election official says there are about 3,600 mail ballots that still need to be [2:30] received and an unknown number of provisional ballots that are going to be looked at and [2:34] processed. Those provisional ballots are used for a number of reasons. We talk about this every [2:39] election, including a lack of photo ID, a voter not being found in the poll book, or people submitting [2:46] incomplete voter registration forms. But it leads to a lot of legal questions here, of course. [2:51] Joining us now is CNN contributor Derek Muller, who is an election law scholar at the University [2:55] of Notre Dame. It's great to have you. Thanks for being here. Can you walk us through kind of [3:00] the questions and the legal questions and road ahead in Mississippi and how and what you could see [3:06] happening here? Right. So far, we haven't seen any legal challenges. I think the campaigns have [3:14] lawyers on the ground looking to make sure that every vote is counted, especially in those counties [3:20] they think are most favorable to them. As you noted, there are thousands of ballots that are still [3:25] outstanding. There will be more coming in. The deadline to receive those ballots is November 10th. So some [3:30] more vote by mail ballots will be received. And then after that, we'll see if the attorneys think that [3:36] there's some batch of ballots that should be counted that haven't been counted. Again, everything so far [3:41] seems to be pretty smooth in Mississippi. But then at the end of that, Mississippi is a rare state that [3:46] doesn't have a recount law and it doesn't really allow the contestants to say, Derek, when we started [3:50] looking at that, when we started looking at that yesterday, we were flipping through like all of [3:55] our research and we're like, wait, there's no recount law. So what could happen here? Yeah, I think it [4:03] seems odd to us. But in the U.S. recounts almost never change the outcome. They really don't. They are [4:09] exceedingly rare and only in the most narrow of margins do they ever change the results. Many [4:14] states 100 years ago never had recount laws. There's something of a modern development. But while most [4:19] states have developed them, Mississippi has not. So if there's a question about the outcome of the [4:24] result after it's certified, maybe there's a mechanism in state court to go to and say, hey, there was [4:29] this problem. But really, this is left of the United States Senate. The United States Senate will receive [4:34] the certificate of election from the winner. And if somebody wants to dispute that, so be it. But [4:38] right now at a thousand vote margin, that's a very hard margin for anyone to overcome. So again, [4:45] adding to what is so fascinating about this Mississippi race, also fascinating. Let's turn [4:49] now to Alaska. There is lots there are still votes to count there in that Senate race and this saga [4:55] that has been followed that has also involved legal challenges over the two Dan Sullivan's on the [5:01] ballot and accusations of, you know, flying back and forth all over the place on that. There's a [5:07] federal lawsuit that's been dismissed, a state investigation that's been launched by the [5:11] governor. What are once this a result does come down, we know this that the incumbent Senator Dan [5:18] Sullivan has said that he will accept the result. But what are the potential legal battles you could [5:23] see coming depending on the result? Right. So after the results are certified in Alaska at the end of [5:31] November, a contestant can file a challenge under the state's contest law. But those are very narrow [5:39] grounds, including that there's some sort of corrupt practice that might have changed the outcome of the [5:44] election. And in this case so far, there might have been some political shenanigans and maybe even at the [5:49] very margins, maybe some criminal activity. But it certainly wouldn't rise, I think, under the statute to [5:54] say that the results should be contested. So I think there's going to be very little avenue for a losing [5:59] candidate to file a challenge to the outcome of the election. That doesn't mean there aren't going [6:03] to be challenges still filed and criminal investigations down the road. But as you noted, [6:08] there was a federal lawsuit filed by this administration trying to challenge and say, [6:13] don't certify the results. That was dismissed. It's been appealed. But I don't think that lawsuit [6:18] will go anywhere. I think the state will certify its results and the ordinary process will play out as it [6:22] does in so many other states. And the shenanigans will continue for elections to come. That is maybe [6:28] just the only certainty that we have here. Derek, it's great to meet you. Thank you so much for [6:31] coming in. I really appreciate it. Can Mississippi, of all places, keep the blue wave going? The Senate [6:36] race there is still too close to call. Democrat Scott Colum is giving Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith [6:43] a run for her money in a state President Trump won by more than 20 points two years ago. The group chat [6:50] is back. Evan, you were there. What did Scott Colum know about voters that, I don't know, [6:58] the Nationals Democrats maybe didn't figure out until too late and Cindy Hyde-Smith was struggling [7:03] with? Well, I'll tell you, he actually ran a very fascinating campaign. When I went down there, [7:06] he was down there with Mayor Pete Buttigieg, you know, the former Transportation Secretary. [7:10] And it was like the weirdest thing. Like, why am I in Mississippi with Mayor Pete and this guy, [7:14] Scott Colum? And as we were standing there on the street in Gulfport, Mississippi, [7:18] somebody drives down, cranks their window down, just screams, I love you, Mayor Pete, [7:23] and drives off. Something was really happening down there. And I'll tell you, [7:27] it was hard for anyone to know. They're not on national press down there because it was such a [7:31] difficult lift. He had a small staff. He had a small crew, didn't have a lot of money. But what [7:36] they did have was this message that was endless message over and over and over being like, you [7:40] haven't really been given a choice in a long time. There are things that you don't like that are [7:44] happening. He was also very online and very savvy. He was very, very good at that. But part of that [7:50] message online, like you can't just sort of be funny online. The thing he was saying online over [7:54] and over was, have you ever thought about the fact that you actually have an option? You can do [7:59] something different here. And that seemed like a message, you know, you know, us jaded political [8:03] reporter types are like, well, okay, you know, nice idea. But the fact is, the voters were like, [8:08] yeah, you're right. We do. All right. Well, now he's in IRL, okay, where we're talking like, [8:12] does there need to be recounts? Do lawyers need to be here? He was asked about that on Wednesday. [8:17] I think that there needs to be a recount in this race with how close the march is. [8:22] I don't want to get into the legal stuff. I got lawyers downhunter that. We got an army of lawyers [8:25] that's ready to protect the process, protect the integrity of the vote. But, you know, I'm confident [8:30] we're going to win. I mean, you know, it's at this point, it's very obvious we're about to win. [8:34] Republican Senator Cindy Ed Smith is also confident. She thinks that when the votes are done [8:37] counting, she will also be, she'll be victorious. Well, she was claiming she's going to win last [8:40] night, you know, bless her heart. She's got to wait and see what the voters are moving in my [8:44] direction. It's very clear where it's going and ask her to do an interview with you. If she's so [8:48] confident, she should get in front of a camera, answer questions. She won't do it. Okay. The [8:55] control room in Atlanta chuckling at bless her heart, which is code, okay, which is code. Well, [9:00] and I will say that, you know, from what I know from Cologne's team, the votes that are outstanding, [9:05] the things they have to actually find, they feel very good about those votes. Like this is, [9:09] this is like these guys feel like they got where they needed to be, which is ahead now. [9:12] And that anything else coming in now should probably be for them. Okay. Why did Republicans [9:17] miss this? Because we had a weak incumbent and, you know, again, you're talking about [9:23] Cindy. Yeah, we have, you know, she's going up against history in a bad sort of, uh, national [9:30] feeling towards Republican policies going up against history in Mississippi. The history [9:35] is Republican. That's the history. The history is also the party in power does not tend to do [9:41] well during the midterms. And when you are, they've always done very well. I agree. I'm [9:44] saying when you're also a weekend candidate and you've got national out, but that's part [9:50] of the weekend candidate, right? I mean, and I think that messaging of you do actually have [9:53] a choice is a strong one. There are, look, a criticism on the left has been, there's a tendency [9:59] to take black voters for granted and Hispanic voters for granted. It's similar on the right [10:04] where just because you come from a red state, you can't just assume you automatically are going [10:09] to get that support. You have to do some of the work and it wasn't just her. I mean, [10:12] when you look with, uh, Dr. Roger Marshall, he chose not to run a race until like three [10:16] weeks ago. And so he took it for granted and then he ends up losing. This race is crazy. [10:20] Okay. It has identical twins. It has revenge. Like Cindy Hidesmith, you may not know this [10:26] actually blocked Scott Klum's federal judicial nomination back in 2023, right? Like he was about [10:32] to get a job and she's the one who blocked him from it. And now he may be the one blocking [10:36] her from a job. Um, should people have paid closer attention? [10:40] Absolutely. And I think, you know, really, uh, smart prognosticators would say once the Supreme [10:44] Court passed the Calais decision where it was basically under, under, undermining black voters [10:50] in the South saying, you no longer matter. Um, black voters were going to say, yes, we do. [10:55] Yes, we absolutely do. I think that's why you saw surging black turnout in not just Mississippi, [10:59] but Georgia, South Carolina, uh, Alabama, Arkansas. I mean, we flipped state legislative seats [11:05] in Alabama. Like this was not just about Mississippi. This was across the South, [11:10] a resurgence of voters who were saying, I will not be silenced during the redistricting fight. [11:14] There was a little bit of like, we don't need to worry about them anymore. And I remember a lot [11:19] of black lawmakers being like, Hey guys, you should help us. This is not good. And I, I do wonder if [11:26] there was an activated black voter in the South who said, you know, in the Washington Sun, we, uh, [11:32] a colleague of mine, Manuel Silva has been covering the redistricting fight right along [11:36] and they had been begging those people down there. They were like, you have got this energy. You've [11:41] got to come down here. And I think that maybe a lesson from this election might be Democrats may [11:45] have sort of let this go a little bit. They, they just spread money around where they needed to [11:48] spread it around. Texas is a very exciting thing to win, but they could have maybe flipped some other [11:53] places to Florida. Maybe they could maybe be Louisiana. We saw it got very close the energy down there. [11:58] Like I said, in Mississippi, I was surprised by it. I'm at a democratic party event with [12:03] Pete Buttigieg, not the, you know, the biggest star in democratic politics and they're standing [12:08] remotely outside. We can't focus on affinity group. Woke is over. Identity politics is over. [12:13] Then you may not hear. Well, I think it's just, I think it's a momentum and an inertia thing, [12:17] which is that these places, just as you're talking about, Republicans maybe take it for granted. [12:22] Democrats are like, there's no way, right? There's no way we can do it. And the thing is they [12:25] maybe I should have said that they could...