Scott Colom Scores Historic Win, Flips Mississippi Senate Seat

Democratic nominee Scott Colom has made political history by turning Mississippi’s Senate seat blue for the first time in 44 years, delivering a stunning upset over Republicans.

The closely watched midterm contest remained undecided for more than a week after Election Day, with Colom locked in a near tie against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Mississippi had not elected a new Democratic senator since 1947, when the winner was a staunch segregationist.

Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, benefited from Mississippi’s large Black electorate, frustration over the economy and a series of missteps by Hyde-Smith, who was backed by President Trump as she pursued a second full term.

When the race was called Wednesday evening, Colom led Hyde-Smith by 4,669 votes, a margin of less than half a percentage point. CNN reported that Hyde-Smith had spoken with Colom and conceded. She later released a video statement on social media.

The Associated Press declared Colom the winner Wednesday after local election officials spent several days counting absentee and provisional ballots, known in Mississippi as affidavit ballots.

The contest became an unexpected nail-biter in an election that cost Republicans their Senate majority, with Democrats flipping their eighth seat.

The Magnolia State had gone more than four decades without a Democratic senator. In the run-up to Election Day, however, Democrats grew increasingly confident that Hyde-Smith’s vulnerabilities could open the door to an upset.

Democrat Scott Colom flipped Mississippi’s Senate seat blue for the first time in 44 years

Trump-backed Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith took office in 2018

President Trump carried Mississippi by 23 points in 2024, while Hyde-Smith won her previous race by seven points.

Colom also drew national attention with several of the campaign’s most widely shared advertisements.

After the 67-year-old Hyde-Smith appeared to dismiss concerns about high beef prices by suggesting consumers choose other proteins, Colom released a 30-second ad featuring incredulous voters saying they would “pick another senator instead.”

On election night, Hyde-Smith came close to declaring victory before supporters at a watch party, but stopped short and predicted she would be confirmed as the winner by Wednesday morning.

“This is a much longer night than we thought it would be,” the Republican said, adding: “I assure you I will continue to be your US Senator.”

Colom ultimately proved that prediction wrong.

The Democrat won Mississippi by less than one percentage point, with the AP calling the race more than a week after voters had cast their final ballots.

During the campaign, Colom enlisted prominent surrogates, including Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in an effort to increase turnout.

Former President Bill Clinton also endorsed Colom and visited the Magnolia State for a midterm rally on October 30.

That appearance appeared to have a greater impact than a rally President Trump held for Hyde-Smith, during which she made a bizarre nine-word appearance.

Although Hyde-Smith faced a tougher-than-expected contest against Colom, the Cook Political Report still rated the Senate race as “likely Republican”

It was Trump’s first visit to Mississippi in seven years. “I’m here because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure,” he told the crowd. “I can’t take a chance.”

In a late-October interview, Geoff Pender, politics editor at the nonprofit newsroom Mississippi Today, said he was surprised by how competitive the race had become.

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“This was not expected to be a race,” he said. “Hyde-Smith early on probably took it for granted.”

Colom brought in high-profile supporters such as Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, while Hyde-Smith turned to Trump for a rally aimed at strengthening her reelection campaign.

Pender said Colom “put in the shoe leather” and “worked hard,” but acknowledged that the Democrat still faced “an uphill battle” and would need Democrats to “supercharge and overperform on turnout” to win.

There was a measure of irony in Hyde-Smith being caught off guard by Colom’s challenge.

In 2022, then-President Joe Biden nominated Colom to serve as a US District Court judge in Mississippi’s Northern District.

Mississippi’s senior Republican senator, Roger Wicker, and former Governor Haley Barbour, a former national Republican chairman, supported the nomination.

Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith faced an unexpectedly close race for the Magnolia State’s Senate seat and appeared on stage for less than a minute during Monday night’s event

Hyde-Smith nevertheless blocked Colom’s confirmation, invoking a Senate tradition that allows members to stop a president’s nominees for federal judicial positions in their home states.

Colom said his Senate campaign was never motivated by a desire to retaliate against Hyde-Smith.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrated Colom’s victory in a social media post.

“Blue Mississippi is here. Scott Colom is the only person who could’ve gotten this done. I knew it from the moment I met him.”

Mississippi has the highest proportion of Black voters of any state, and its statewide elections have long been more competitive than those in neighboring Southern states.

Trump won Mississippi by double digits in each of his three presidential campaigns. In 2023, however, Republican Governor Tate Reeves won reelection by only three percentage points.

Throughout 2026, Colom and other Black Democratic leaders and strategists argued that strong Black turnout, dissatisfaction among Republican voters and a modest increase in the party’s traditional share of the white vote could narrow the gap.

The results showed particularly strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta and the state’s majority-Black counties.

Former President Bill Clinton endorsed Colom and visited the Magnolia State for a midterm rally on October 30

Nearly every part of the state also shifted left compared with the 2024 election, when Trump carried Mississippi by almost 23 points.

Then-Governor Phil Bryant first appointed Hyde-Smith, who was serving as state agriculture commissioner, to the Senate in 2018 after Senator Thad Cochran resigned.

She won a special-election runoff that year and a full term in 2020. In both contests, she defeated Democrat Mike Espy, a former US agriculture secretary who had been Mississippi’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction.

As the vote count continued, Colom acknowledged the historic significance of achieving what Espy could not.

But he said he viewed his role less through the lens of his own story than through the experiences of other Mississippians, particularly the state’s youngest residents.

“My job is to do well enough as the next United States senator that the next time some young Black boy or girl has the work ethic, the vision and the values,” he said, “and they want to be United States senator, that nobody says because of anything I’ve done that they shouldn’t get a chance.”