Scott Colom wins Mississippi Senate seat in historic Democratic breakthrough

Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi's US Senate election, becoming the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Associated Press declared him the winner on Wednesday after several days of counting absentee and provisional ballots. A spokesman for Hyde-Smith confirmed that she had called Colom to concede.

The narrow victory breaks with generations of predominantly white conservative political control in Mississippi. The state last elected a new Democratic senator in 1947, when the winning candidate was a staunch segregationist. Colom's success also strengthens Democratic gains in midterm elections that brought defeats for President Donald Trump's party in several Republican-controlled states.

Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, built his campaign around economic dissatisfaction, Mississippi's large Black electorate and weaknesses in Hyde-Smith's bid for a second full term. He argued that he could serve residents across the state's longstanding racial divisions and urged Democrats to offer practical improvements for voters in rural communities, suburbs and cities.

National Democratic attention and funding arrived relatively late. Black senators including Georgia's Raphael Warnock and Maryland's Angela Alsobrooks had earlier pressed donors and party leaders to take the race seriously. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer helped raise money, while Illinois Governor JB Pritzker provided financial backing. Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for Colom in the closing weeks.

Some of Colom's advertisements gained wide circulation, including one responding to Hyde-Smith's suggestion that consumers facing expensive beef could choose other proteins. His 30-second advertisement showed voters reacting with disbelief and proposing a change of senator. Colom also approached Trump supporters waiting outside an October rally in Corinth, introducing himself, hearing their concerns and discussing his priorities.

Colom criticised Trump's policies, particularly the Iran war and tariffs that he said were hurting Mississippi farmers, while avoiding personal attacks on the president or his voters. He concentrated his criticism on Hyde-Smith, portraying her as ineffective in Washington. That argument carried weight in a state whose former senators Thad Cochran, Trent Lott and John Stennis had held influential positions and brought federal funding home.

The candidates also had a history involving Colom's judicial nomination. Then-President Joe Biden nominated him in 2022 for a federal district court judgeship in northern Mississippi. Republican Senator Roger Wicker and former Governor Haley Barbour supported the nomination, but Hyde-Smith blocked it through a Senate practice allowing senators to halt judicial appointments in their states. Colom said his Senate campaign was not an effort to settle that dispute.

Mississippi has the country's largest share of Black voters, and Colom's campaign argued that strong Black participation, Republican dissatisfaction and increased support among white voters could close the partisan gap. Results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta's majority-Black counties. Almost the entire state shifted towards Democrats compared with 2024, when Trump won Mississippi by nearly 23 percentage points.

Hyde-Smith entered the Senate by appointment in 2018 after Cochran resigned, then defeated Democrat Mike Espy in elections that year and in 2020. Colom acknowledged the significance of achieving a breakthrough Espy had sought. He said he wanted his service to help ensure that future Black children with the ability and ambition to become senators would have a chance to do so.