Democrat Scott Colom flips Mississippi Senate seat in upset
Why it matters: The win makes Colom the first Black senator from Mississippi since 1874 and widens Democrats’ Senate edge.
Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s US Senate race, a projected upset in a state Donald Trump carried by nearly 23 points in 2024. Media-tabulated returns showed Colom ahead by about 0.5 percentage point, or roughly 4,600 votes, in one of the last Senate contests to be called after the Nov. 3 midterms. Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, becomes Mississippi’s first Black senator since 1874 and the first Democrat to win a Senate seat there since 1982. Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in 2018 and later won a special election, congratulated Colom after trailing in the final count.