Newsom and Elias back Colom as Mississippi Senate count remains unsettled

Democratic allies Gavin Newsom and Marc Elias are rallying behind Scott Colom as the Mississippi Senate race remains too close to call. Newsom is asking supporters for urgent donations, while Elias says his law firm is preparing to help with legal challenges over the final count.

In a fundraising email sent overnight, Newsom’s campaign warned that the race was entering a stage involving ballot corrections and possible court battles. It said Colom was ahead of Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by only a few hundred votes and urged supporters not to assume the contest was over.

Incomplete, unofficial results showed Colom leading by 43 votes on Wednesday, with an estimated 44,000 ballots still to be processed. Those include absentee, affidavit and provisional ballots.

Elias said his firm was heading the legal effort to help secure a win for Colom. A veteran Democratic election lawyer, Elias served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and led a Perkins Coie team representing Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. He later founded Elias Law Group, which has represented Democratic candidates and committees in prominent election disputes.

Mississippi law gives absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day five business days to arrive, through Nov. 10. Voters may also correct certain ballot issues during that period.

The Mississippi Democratic Party has separately filed a court challenge alleging that polling places in DeSoto County opened late, faced long lines and ran short of ballots.