Scott Colom flips Mississippi Senate seat by fewer than 5,000 votes
Why it matters: Colom became Mississippi’s first Democratic senator since 1982 and its first Black senator since Reconstruction.
Democrat Scott Colom won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, edging Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by fewer than 5,000 votes in one of the closest contests of the midterms. The Associated Press called the race Wednesday after days of counting. Colom, a district attorney since 2016, is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi in more than four decades and the first Black senator to represent the state since Reconstruction. He ran on affordability, healthcare access and keeping rural hospitals open. NPR reported Hyde-Smith called to concede, though Mississippi Republicans had signaled they were weighing legal options as the count tightened.