Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith will face Democratic challenger Scott Colom in the November general election, after each candidate easily won party primary races on Tuesday.

House incumbents, including longtime Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, also easily won their primary races Tuesday night.

Hyde-Smith defeated GOP challenger Sarah Adlakha, while Colom, the district attorney for Noxubee, Clay, Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties, also won his primary by defeating Marine Corps veteran Albert Littell and Priscilla Williams-Till, a distant cousin of lynching victim Emmett Till. Hyde-Smith and Colom will also compete against independent candidate Ty Pinkins in November.

The matchup could prove to be an expensive, hotly contested battle as Republicans aim to hold their slim majority in the Senate.

All four of Mississippi’s incumbent U.S. representatives and Hyde-Smith, the junior U.S. senator, are running for reelection in 2026 and were on the ballot Tuesday. See Mississippi Today’s primary election results here.

Throughout the primary campaign, Hyde-Smith highlighted her close relationship with President Donald Trump and her close ties to Mississippi’s farmers.

Hyde-Smith became a U.S. senator in 2018 after former Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to fill the seat vacated by longtime Sen. Thad Cochran. She later won a special election in 2018 to complete the remainder of Cochran’s term and was elected to a full six-year term in 2020. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

At a political breakfast in Rankin County on Saturday, Hyde-Smith relished the nearing end of a primary filled with what she said was a flurry of negative attack ads against her. She looked ahead to a general election against Colom, calling him a “George Soros-backed candidate” and saying she expected a difficult general election campaign, with Republicans trying to fend off Democratic challengers eager to capitalize on backlash to President Trump’s second term.

“It’s going to be tough between now and November,” Hyde-Smith said. “It’s going to be a long summer for me. I know that, but I’m going to be out working.”

Colom centered his primary campaign on raising the minimum wage, improving access to health care in Mississippi and exempting law enforcement officers and teachers from the income tax. 

“Mississippi needs a senator who’s going to put Mississippi first,” Colom has said at several campaign events.

Colom and Hyde-Smith have both engaged in fierce fundraising efforts in recent months, which is expected to continue into the general election. Colom raised more money than Hyde-Smith for the last quarter, but the Republican incumbent still had significantly more cash on hand than the Democratic challenger. 

Colom now faces an uphill battle of trying to become the first Democrat since the 1980s to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi. But national Democratic leaders have signaled they’re willing to spend lots of money to flip Mississippi to a Democratic state. 

House Republican incumbents Trent Kelly in District 1 and Michael Guest in District 3 both ran unopposed for the Republican nomination. Guest will take on Democrat Michael Chiaradio, a former baseball player turned regenerative farmer originally from New Jersey who now lives in Shubuta. Chiaradio also ran unopposed in his party’s primary.

Kelly will take on Cliff Johnson, a University of Mississippi law school professor who defeated former Marshall County state Rep. Kelvin Buck. The congressional district has voted solidly conservative in recent elections, but Johnson has aggressively fundraised and utilized digital ads in an effort to flip the conservative area to a Democratic district. 

In District 4, incumbent Republican Mike Ezell defeated Sawyer Walters, who works for the state Department of Marine Resources and serves as a lieutenant in the Mississippi Army National Guard. Ezell will take on Jeffrey Hulum III, a state representative from Gulfport. Hulum defeated D. Ryan Grover, a business consultant who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2023 and Paul Blackman, a Navy veteran.

In District 2, the only seat held by a Democrat, incumbent Thompson staved off a primary challenge from Evan Turnage, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Senate Conference Vice Chair Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The race drew attention due to Turnage’s connections to powerful congressional Democrats.

Thompson has represented the district, which covers Jackson and the Delta, since 1993. Turnage attempted to run on a message of generational change, but Thompson, a civil rights leader and former chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th Capitol attack, is a towering figure in state and national politics. 

Thompson also defeated Pertis Williams III, who has focused on agricultural issues. 

On the Republican side in District 2, Adams County Supervisor Kevin Wilson squared off against Ron Eller, a physician’s assistant and military veteran who is running again for the GOP nomination after losing to Thompson by nearly 25 points in 2024. As of late Tuesday night, the race was too close to call.

Party nominees chosen on Tuesday will compete in the general election on Nov. 3.