Democrat Scott Colom won Mississippi’s United States Senate race on Wednesday securing a historic victory in a Republican stronghold.
The prosecutor will become the state’s first Black senator in more than 140 years. He narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in one of the midterms’ biggest upsets.
The breakthrough builds on broader Democratic momentum from the November 3 midterms. The party flipped at least eight US Senate seats previously held by Republicans, while a race in Alaska remained undecided.
For more than a week, election officials sifted through more than 100,000 mail-in ballots. Thousands of residents also cast provisional ballots that required eligibility checks.
Hyde-Smith maintained a low profile during the count, returning to Washington as the Senate reconvened. Her team released a statement expressing confidence that she would win after every legally cast vote was fully and accurately counted.
Colom held public events and criticized his opponent’s absence.
“Ultimately, at some point, the senator needs to speak out. Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith?” he told reporters in Jackson, Mississippi. “We want to hear from her. She needs to answer questions. What is her path to victory? She doesn’t have one.”
The two candidates previously clashed in 2023. Hyde-Smith blocked Colom from serving as a federal judge after his nomination by former President Joe Biden, citing concerns over his position on transgender athletes.
Mississippi voted for Donald Trump by more than 22 points in the 2024 presidential election. The last Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state was John Stennis in 1982.
Colom campaigned on raising the minimum wage, protecting rural hospitals, and ending the US-Israel war on Iran. He will be sworn in next January.
