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Mississippi Senate: Longshot Ty Pinkins says he aimed to spoil Hyde-Smith, boost Colom vote
Independent candidate Ty Pinkins said he stayed in Mississippi’s Senate race to weaken Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s vote and help Democrat David Baria? No: the article identifies the Democratic candidate as Colom, whom Pinkins said could help people across the state. Pinkins said he deliberately avoided campaigning in areas with large Black populations so he would not draw votes from Colom, who is also Black.
Pinkins said his support came mainly from areas with relatively few Black residents and argued he split the Republican vote rather than the Black vote. He described the outcome as the first time since Reconstruction that a Black Democratic man was leading in the state. A lawyer and Army veteran, Pinkins was the Democratic Senate nominee in 2024, when Republican Roger Wicker won nearly 63% of the vote to Pinkins’s roughly 37%.
In short
- Pinkins says he ran to hurt Hyde-Smith’s vote and help Colom.
- He avoided campaigning in areas with large Black populations.
- In 2024, Pinkins lost to Wicker by about 63% to 37%.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Pinkins could argue that, as an independent, he was entitled to remain in the race and that his campaign gave voters another option while helping weaken Hyde-Smith’s support. He says he focused on areas where he believed he would draw more from Republicans than from Colom, and regarded Colom’s prospects as a chance to advance representation and policies he supported.
The case against
Critics could argue that deliberately staying in a race to affect another candidate’s vote risks treating voters chiefly as instruments of a partisan strategy. Even if Pinkins avoided campaigning in heavily Black areas, his claim that he mainly split the Republican vote is difficult to establish, and his candidacy may still have diverted support from Colom.
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