Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi Senate race, the Associated Press announced on Wednesday, more than a week after election day. Colom's lead on that day had grown to 4,669 votes.
According to the final results, Colom won 49.2 per cent of the vote, while Hyde-Smith received 48.7 per cent. An independent candidate secured 2.1 per cent of the vote. Hyde-Smith congratulated Colom in a video posted on the X network on Wednesday evening, stating: "Although this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters."
Colom's victory breaks a Republican streak in Mississippi dating back to 1982, when John C. Stennis was the last Democrat elected from the state to the Senate. Stennis was a staunch segregationist for much of his career. Mississippi has not sent a Black senator to Washington since 1875, and the last Black man elected to the Senate from the state was Blanche K. Bruce, born into slavery, who was elected by the state legislature in 1874 and served from 1875 to 1881. During Reconstruction, senators were chosen by state legislators, and Colom is the first Black man in Mississippi history to be elected to the office by direct popular vote. With his election, Mississippi has sent more Black individuals to the Senate than any other state except Illinois.
During the campaign, Colom promised that "Mississippi matters" and visited all 82 counties in the state. Hyde-Smith attacked Colom in the campaign as a puppet of billionaire liberal donor George Soros, whose family helped finance his political campaigns, while Colom gave Hyde-Smith the nickname "Cindy High Prices". Hyde-Smith has been criticised for a lack of public appearances, with the last video on her YouTube channel posted in October 2020, while the page title still uses a logo from a previous campaign.
Before entering the Senate, Colom defeated a nearly 30-year incumbent in 2015 to become the first Black state attorney for the 16th district, with a 94 per cent success rate in verdicts. Colom is the son of a long-time Republican who campaigned for Ronald Reagan and was a friend of Thad Cochran, who resigned from his Senate seat in 2018 due to deteriorating health. Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in the Northern District of Mississippi, but Hyde-Smith blocked the confirmation hearing, saying: "I blocked Scott Colom from becoming a federal judge, and you blocked him from becoming a US senator."
Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris and Bill Clinton campaigned for Colom, while Trump held a rally in support of Hyde-Smith last month. A week before the vote, Colom attended Trump's rally for Hyde-Smith in Corinth. Colom's campaign produced a 30-second ad that cuts from Hyde-Smith's response to a man grilling burgers, while Colom drove a truck with "choose your protein" tacos around the state, handing out free tacos to voters. One ad, released in mid-October, gathered more than 20 million views on social media, and the idea, according to Colom, came from Patrick Gaspard, former US ambassador to South Africa and advisor to President Barack Obama. The ad was directed and edited by Ryan Sayles, while another comedic ad, a Halloween parody of the film Sinners called Sinators, was written and directed by Colom's twin brother Andrew Colom, who also acted in it alongside the candidate.
Towards the end of the campaign, Colom appeared in a serious ad showing a house in Mississippi where civil rights activist Medgar Evers was killed in 1963 for registering Black voters. "I have been a prosecutor for 10 years and unfortunately I have stood in many houses where something terrible happened," Colom said. "This was not just any house. This was not just any tragedy. Medgar Evers died here." He added: "He fought for this country and Normandy. He came home to Mississippi and they did not let him vote. So he organised, helping others to register." "He was killed because he helped Mississippians vote," Colom said. "On Tuesday, use your voice and honour everyone who died for that right." The ad was written by Arun Chaudhary, who worked on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, was the official White House videographer during Obama's first term, and later became the creative director of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Several of Colom's ads gave leading roles to his wife and two daughters.
With Colom's election, Democrats will hold at least 55 seats in the Senate, the party's largest mid-term gain since 1986. Democrats won Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina and Kansas and took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Polls suggest that voter dissatisfaction with the economy and the war with Iran under President Trump drove the results. Hyde-Smith ran for re-election in a state that Trump won in the 2024 election by more than 22 points. The race in Alaska, which is neck and neck, has not yet been called.
