STARKVILLE, Miss. — U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is set to rally supporters in Starkville on Saturday, Oct. 31, making one of her last campaign stops before Mississippi voters go to the polls on Tuesday.
The Republican incumbent is booked for The Mill, the Russell Street venue near campus, with the event starting at 10 a.m. The event lands three days before Election Day and follows a Mississippi visit earlier in the week by President Donald Trump, who came to the state to campaign for her.
Hyde-Smith is in a three-way race. Her challengers on the ballot are Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee, and Ty Pinkins, who is running as an independent.
Colom’s campaign argues the contest is close. It released a Change Research poll last week that had Hyde-Smith at 43 percent, Colom at 40 percent and Pinkins at 6 percent. Polls showed a similar gap six years ago when Hyde-Smith faced Democrat Mike Espy, and she went on to win that race by about 10 points.
Some Colom backers have pressed Pinkins to leave the race so the anti-incumbent vote is not split. Pinkins, a Delta-based attorney who spent 21 years in the military, has refused. He left the Democratic Party in July 2025 and is making his second run for the Senate after losing to Sen. Roger Wicker in November 2024 with just over 37 percent of the vote. In 2023 the state Democratic Party picked him as a substitute nominee for secretary of state, a race he lost to Republican Michael Watson by 19 points.
For Starkville and Oktibbeha County voters, the stop puts the statewide race on Mississippi State’s doorstep in the final weekend. Polls open Tuesday, Nov. 3, and the Senate seat sits at the top of the ballot.
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