Democrat Scott Colom has captured Mississippi’s fiercely contested U.S. Senate seat, delivering his party a stunning upset in a Republican bastion that has resisted Democratic victories for more than four decades.
Colom, a former prosecutor who will become the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction, edged out incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in a race that remained too close to call for over a week following the midterm elections.
The victory caps a remarkable midterm cycle for Democrats, who have now flipped at least eight Republican-held Senate seats, with one race in Alaska still undecided. Election officials spent days tabulating more than 100,000 mail-in ballots and verifying thousands of provisional ballots cast by voters whose registrations could not be confirmed at polling sites.
As the count dragged on, the candidates adopted sharply divergent strategies. Hyde-Smith remained largely out of public view until returning to Washington for the Senate’s return to session, expressing confidence that she would prevail once “every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted.” Colom, by contrast, barnstormed the state with public events where he pressed his opponent to engage.
“Ultimately, at some point, the senator needs to speak out. Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith?” Colom told reporters in Jackson on Friday. “We want to hear from her. She needs to answer questions. What is her path to victory? She doesn’t have one.”
The rivalry predates the general election. In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s confirmation to a federal judgeship after President Joe Biden nominated him, citing concerns over his stance on transgender athletes. That confrontation foreshadowed the bitter contest that followed.
Colom’s triumph defies Mississippi’s deep Republican lean — Donald Trump carried the state by more than 22 points in the 2024 presidential race. The last Democrat to win a Senate race here was John Stennis in 1982, who defeated Haley Barbour, the future governor.
A proponent of raising the minimum wage, bolstering rural hospitals, and ending U.S. military involvement in Iran, Colom will be sworn in next January as the Senate’s seventh Black member.