Jackson (United States) (AFP) - Mississippi residents faced a “nerve-wracking” wait to see whether the southern state elects its first Black senator in more than a century as vote-counting dragged on Sunday after this past week’s US midterms.

Voters who spoke to AFP in the state capital Jackson on Saturday anticipated that history could be in the making in the whisker-close race between Democrat Scott Colom, an African-American man, and Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, a white woman.

With 97 percent of the vote counted by Sunday afternoon, Colom was 2,574 votes ahead of Hyde-Smith – a gap of just 0.3 percentage points.

Mississippi has not elected a Democratic senator since 1982, and Colom would be its first Black senator in nearly 150 years – since the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War that ended slavery.

Gregory Glass, a 47-year-old restaurant owner, himself an African-American, said a victory for Colom would be “historic” but admitted to having “bittersweet” feelings about that.

“It should have happened sooner than that, especially in Mississippi, in a state that has so many African-Americans in it,” said Glass.

According to the US Census Bureau, more than one-third of the state’s population, long viewed as a bastion of Republican politics, is Black.

A victory for Colom would also put another staunchly Republican state – including Texas, South Carolina and Kansas – in the Democrats’ column for Senate in Tuesday’s election.

The midterms were a resounding win for Democrats, who seized control of both houses of Congress as voters nationwide delivered a stinging rebuke to Republican President Donald Trump.

- ‘Every single vote’ -

But the count is not over yet.

The unusually long wait reflects Mississippi’s election procedures, which allow officials several days to process mail-in and provisional ballots – potentially enough to decide the contest.

Jermal Clark, election commissioner for Hinds County, which includes the city of Jackson, said that they were still going through so-called “affidavit” provisional ballots.

These are cast by people whose eligibility cannot be confirmed at polling stations, sometimes because of missing identification or discrepancies in voter registration records.

“We’re in the process of counting them for the accuracy and the checking to see if each individual lives in the precinct that they say they live in,” Clark told AFP.

Secretary of State Michael Watson posted on X on Friday that 11,202 affidavit ballots have now been processed with roughly 78 percent of them being accepted.

He also said there are also just under 2,900 outstanding absentee ballots.

“I’m just amazed at how so many communities and these election people are coming together to make sure every single vote is cast,” said voter Coretta Fraser, a human resources manager.

- ‘We’re excited’ -

“We’re excited. You know, it’s good to be part of something historic,” said bakery manager Ebony Jones, who viewed Colom’s potential win as a relief from years of bad news like the COVID pandemic and the development of artificial intelligence.

The close contest has prompted both parties to deploy lawyers, with Republicans demanding that officials preserve records relating to the outstanding ballots in anticipation of possible legal challenges.

Mississippi has no automatic recount procedure, although candidates can seek court intervention.

For Glass, the restaurant owner, the voters’ verdict can’t come soon enough.

“The waiting is a little bit nerve-wracking because you want them to just call it,” he said, making clear his preference for Colom to win.

“And I’m sure people on the other side of it don’t necessarily want that,” he said. “You want to wait till every single vote gets in, which it should be.”

msp/mjf