Scott Colom defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, becoming the state’s first elected Black senator since Reconstruction. The Democrat’s victory followed more than a week of ballot counting and added to his party’s midterm gains. He will take office in January after a campaign focused on wages, rural hospitals and the Iran war.
Democratic prosecutor Scott Colom defeated incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the United States Senate race in Mississippi, a state in the American South. The result was declared on Wednesday after more than a week of counting. Colom will be the first Black senator elected by Mississippi since Reconstruction, the period after the American Civil War.[1], [2]
Election officials counted more than one hundred thousand mailed ballots. Thousands of provisional votes also needed eligibility checks because voters had been unable to confirm their registration at polling places. The victory brings Democrats’ gains from Republican-held Senate seats in the midterms to at least eight. The Alaska contest remained undecided when the result was reported.[1]
Mississippi last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1982, when John Stennis defeated Haley Barbour. Donald Trump carried the state by more than twenty-two percentage points in the 2024 presidential election. Colom campaigned for a higher minimum wage, protection for rural hospitals and an end to the Iran war. He takes office in January; the incoming Congress will have seven Black senators. The candidates had crossed paths before: Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination by Joe Biden to a federal judgeship in 2023.[1]
