Mississippi votes on November 3. Absentee voting opens September 19. And Cindy Hyde-Smith, running for a second full term in the U.S. Senate, has not agreed to a single debate or a single public town hall.

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, her Democratic opponent Scott Colom held a press conference in downtown Jackson to launch a "Where's Cindy" tour — five town halls in five Mississippi cities between August 31 and September 4, open to voters and their questions.

His ask of the incumbent was modest to the point of being embarrassing:

"She needs to do one town hall. She can pick the reddest county in the state."

One. Anywhere she likes. In front of the friendliest crowd in Mississippi.

The answer was not an answer

Hyde-Smith's campaign manager, Jake Monssen, responded to the "Where's Cindy" question by listing her funding announcements — Delta State's aviation program, a rural hospital collaboration in Franklin County, other towns around the state.

Then he added this:

"I can tell you where she isn't. Sen. Hyde-Smith isn't with Scott Colom in George Soros' apartment in NYC, promoting gender transition surgeries for children and other extreme policies of the radical left."

Read what actually happened there. A sitting United States senator was asked, through her campaign, whether she would stand in a room in Mississippi and take questions from Mississippians. Her campaign's official reply was a sentence about a billionaire's apartment and surgery on children.

It is not a scheduling answer. It is not a "we're considering it." It is a change of subject dressed up as an insult — and nothing else in the statement came any closer to a yes or a no.

Soros has donated to Colom's campaign; he donates to Democratic candidates regularly. Colom's response has been that hundreds of Mississippians have donated to him too. Neither fact has anything to do with whether Hyde-Smith will take questions anywhere in Mississippi.

She has done this before

This is not a first-time dodge. It is her pattern, and the record is short enough to state completely:

• 2018 — Hyde-Smith debated Mike Espy during the special election runoff.
• 2020 — running for her first full six-year term against the same opponent, she did not debate him at all.
• 2026 — no debate agreed to, no town hall agreed to, with the election nine weeks out.

One debate, eight years ago, in the one race where she was an appointed senator who had never been on a ballot for the seat and could not avoid it.

Ty Pinkins, an independent also on the November ballot, has challenged both party nominees to debate. Colom said he would take any debate "any time our junior senator shows up."

What she is avoiding being asked about

The "busy announcing funding" defense is worth taking seriously for a second, because it tells you what a town hall would be about.

Colom used the same press conference to hit Hyde-Smith for not standing up to President Trump on tariffs, on agriculture policy, and on the war with Iran — three things driving up what Mississippians pay.

"Listen, she totally gave away our voice on tariffs. If you look at the Constitution, it's clear that the Congress, including our senator, is supposed to be Mississippi's voice when it comes to tariffs."

Those are the questions a farmer in the Delta gets to ask at a town hall and does not get to ask at a ribbon-cutting. Announcing a grant is a press release with a podium in front of it. Nobody in the room gets to ask why beef and diesel cost what they cost, or why, in Colom's words, their senator gave away Mississippi's voice on tariffs.

There is also the matter of the man asking for the debate. Hyde-Smith already blocked Scott Colom once — she killed his federal judgeship by refusing to return a blue slip, a procedure a Mississippi segregationist invented to keep civil rights judges off the bench, after Roger Wicker and two Republican governors had backed him. She never had to explain that decision to a room of voters either.

A Republican habit, not a Mississippi one

Hyde-Smith is one of many. In Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn skipped a public forum, wouldn't say whether she'd debate, and claimed she had done "lots of forums" until a TV station checked with her opponents and found it wasn't true. In Minnesota, Brad Finstad says the people asking him for a town hall just want to "have a hissy fit", and answers constituents only on phone calls his own office fills.

The common thread is that none of them lose anything by refusing. There is no rule requiring a debate. The only cost is whatever voters decide to charge them for it.

What the record shows

Cindy Hyde-Smith has agreed to no debate and no town hall in a race that ends November 3, with absentee voting starting September 19. She has debated an opponent exactly once, in 2018, and skipped debating the same opponent in 2020. Asked this week to hold one town hall in the reddest county she could pick, her campaign manager's public response was that she is not in George Soros's New York apartment promoting surgery for children.

Source

Taylor Vance, Colom calls on Hyde-Smith to participate in debate and town hall before election, Mississippi Today, August 28, 2026. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / AP.