Democrat Scott Colom has won Mississippi’s US Senate seat, defeating Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by a narrow margin in one of the biggest upsets of the US midterm elections.
Colom, a prosecutor, will become Mississippi’s first Black senator in more than 140 years and the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the state since 1982, Al Jazeera reported. He takes office in January.
A count that ran for a week
The contest was too close to call for more than a week while officials counted over 100,000 mail-in ballots, alongside thousands of provisional ballots that required confirmation of voters’ eligibility.
Hyde-Smith did not appear publicly until returning to Washington mid-week, her team saying she expected to prevail once “every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted.” Colom had pressed the point during the wait: “Ultimately, at some point, the senator needs to speak out. Where is Cindy Hyde-Smith?”
Hiru News reported that Hyde-Smith subsequently congratulated Colom in a video message on X, saying that while it was not the result she had hoped or worked for, she respected the decision of Mississippi voters. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins also contested the seat.
Al Jazeera notes the 120th Congress will include a record seven Black senators.
The wider picture
Democrats flipped at least eight Republican-held seats in these midterms, and a race in Alaska remains undecided. Al Jazeera does not state a final chamber balance; Hiru put the Democrats at 55 of the 100 seats with Alaska outstanding, a figure LankaNewz could not confirm independently.
Hiru also reported that Democrats took several other Republican strongholds including Texas, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa, and that post-election surveys pointed to economic strain from President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and the war with Iran. Trump carried Mississippi by more than 22 points in 2024.
At the NAACP’s Mississippi headquarters in Jackson, chairman Leon Russell called it a historic win built on the Black community’s commitment and organising strength rather than money, Hiru reported.
