3rd place Mississippi Senate candidate says he did not spoil tight race for Democrat

Independent Ty Pinkins, the third-place candidate in Mississippi's surprisingly tightly contested Senate race, says he does not believe he spoiled the race for the Democrat, and may have ultimately helped him in the final tally.

With only around 1,700 votes separating Democrat Scott Colom and incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the hotly contested race, Pinkins, who currently holds around 20,000 votes, said Wednesday he hopes Colom wins the race, and said he may have actually boosted the Democrat's performance.

"Now, there's a fight, and he's in the lead, and I hope he wins," Pinkins told CNN on Wednesday, when the margin was 65 votes.

Pinkins claimed that a majority of his votes came from traditionally Republican counties in the state.

"What we did in this race as an independent campaign, we did the opposite of a spoiler if you look at the data coming out of this race," Pinkins said.

Pinkins said throughout the summer his campaign believed a large amount of his support was coming from Republicans.

"You can't assume that all of those votes would have went right back to Scott Colom," he said, citing the state's history of electing Republicans.

Pinkins said, "I'm happy that we drew votes from Cindy Hyde-Smith."

With 96% of the expected vote reporting as of Thursday, Democrat Scott Colom slightly leads with 49.0% of the vote (466,226), followed by Republican Hyde-Smith with 48.9% of the vote (464,502). 

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said in a Wednesday afternoon update that, at the time, there were around 3,600 outstanding mail ballots that could be received within the next five business days, and that there are "an unknown number of affidavit ballots that will be processed within the 10-day window counties have to certify their results."

Mississippi's Secretary of State Office confirmed to ABC News this week that the state has no formal recount process.

According to the secretary of state's office, candidates cannot request a recount, and a recount cannot be automatically triggered in Mississippi.

The office did share, however, that a candidate can perform "a ballot box exam" and examine ballot materials after the election is certified. If they see issues, they can file a legal challenge, the office said.