Democrat Scott Colom Wins Mississippi Senate Seat in Upset Over Hyde-Smith
The win gives Democrats an eighth Senate flip of the cycle and makes Colom the first Black senator from the state since Reconstruction.
Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi Senate race, CBS News projected Wednesday, ending a contest that stayed undecided for days after Election Day and handing Democrats an eighth flipped Senate seat.
Colom, 43, is a district attorney and a seventh-generation Mississippian. He ran on cost of living and health care and argued that Hyde-Smith had not delivered for the state. He will be Mississippi's first Black senator since Reconstruction. Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris both campaigned with him in the weeks before the election.
Speaking Wednesday night at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Colom pointed to the long odds he faced. "Throughout this campaign, there were many times where I had to have faith. There were times that I couldn't get donors to answer the phone. They did not believe a moment like this was possible, but I kept the faith," he said. He recalled that fewer than 10 people showed up to his first town hall in Jackson.
Hyde-Smith, 67, has been in the Senate since 2018 and was the first woman elected to represent Mississippi in Congress. She conceded in a video message. "While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," she said, congratulating Colom and wishing him well.
The result is a striking one in a deep-red state. President Trump carried Mississippi by 20 points in 2024, and the state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1982. The race tightened in the last weeks of the campaign. National Democrats put ad money into it for the first time last month, and the Cook Political Report moved its rating from solidly Republican to leaning Republican. CBS News reported that the headwinds facing Republicans across the map, including an unpopular war in Iran and persistent affordability concerns, reached even reliably red states.
The count itself was close. The day after the election, only a few dozen votes at one point separated the candidates, and Colom's lead grew in the days that followed as ballots were tallied.
Colom's seat is the eighth Democrats have taken from Republicans this cycle, after wins in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Maine. When the new Congress is sworn in in January, Democrats will hold at least 55 Senate seats to the Republicans' 44, with the Alaska race still a toss-up. That margin gives Democrats control of the chamber and, with it, the power to shape confirmations, investigations and war-funding votes for the final two years of Trump's term.
