JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) – Democratic candidate Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in The hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Mississippi after a prolonged recount process, giving the state its first black U.S. senator since Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Colom’s narrow victory constitutes a seismic shift Mississippiwhich has been controlled primarily by white conservatives for generations, although it has the largest proportion of black residents of any U.S. state. The result adds up to a decisive result midterm reprimand of President Donald Trumpwhose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and this will strengthen the argument of some Democrats that their future lies in the American South.
The Associated Press called the contest Wednesday in favor of Colom after local elections officials spent several days processing absentee and provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots in Mississippi.
“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Hyde-Smith, 67, said in a two-minute concession speech posted online. “I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the enormous responsibility of representing our great state.”
A spokesperson for the senator said she called Colom to congratulate him and concede before the video was shared publicly.
Colom planned a victory celebration with supporters Wednesday night in Jackson.
The last time Mississippi chose a new Democratic senator was in 1947, and the winner was a staunch segregationist. Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, capitalized on the large black population, dissatisfaction with the economy and missteps by Hyde-Smith as she sought a second full term.
“They really deserve a senator who listens to them, who actually cares about what they think, who actually cares about what they’re going through,” Colom said in the final stretch of the campaign.
Colom said during the campaign that he could represent all of Mississippi, a state where racial divisions have long defined its politics and its society.
“It has to be about having a party that represents rural America again, suburban America, urban America — a party that makes sure that we actually meet the expectations of voters in a way that improves their lives,” he said.
National Democrats, activists and Mississippians celebrate
Party leaders hailed the senator-elect’s triumph, nodding to the South’s emerging battleground status after other upset victories, from North Carolina to Texas.
“Scott Colom is the only person who could have done this,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said online. “With his team and volunteers, Scott ran the campaign of his life and reinvented what is possible for Southern Democrats.”
Former President Bill Clinton, an Arkansan who campaigned with Colom days before the election, addressed the senator-elect on social media, saying he won “because you believe in the promise of the people of your state. And they believed in you right away.”
Vera Finley was one of those supporters, and she arrived early Wednesday at Colom’s victory party.
“I’m here to celebrate my parents and my grandparents. I’m not a generation out of the cotton fields,” Finley said. “Both my parents picked cotton. And my great-grandmother was sold here as a slave from Virginia to here. So I’m so excited to be on this side of history.”
Another Mississippian, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, released a statement saying the state’s voters “made history because they refused to be intimidated, discouraged or excluded.”
“In a state that has witnessed some of the nation’s toughest battles for voting rights, Black voters have once again demonstrated the power of civic engagement and the strength of our democracy,” Johnson said.
A race that Washington once considered a long-term project
Despite Schumer’s support, the contest came late to the national spotlight, finally attracting attention and money months after black senators, including Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, first urged donors and party leaders to view Mississippi as winnable.
The son of a former Republican who worked for President Ronald Reagan, Colom gained attention for his aggressive campaign as Democrats expanded the Senate battleground map and Hyde-Smith’s vulnerabilities crystallized.
It produced one of the most widely syndicated commercials of the year. After Hyde-Smith appeared to ignore high beef prices by saying consumers could choose other proteinsColom cut to a 30-second spot depicting disbelieving voters saying they would “rather choose another senator.”
When Trump came to Corinth, Mississippi, in late October for a rally with Hyde-Smith, Colom followed the line of Trump supporters as they waited outside the gates. He introduced himself, asked about their concerns, and explained his priorities.
Later that evening, when Trump called Hyde-Smith on stage, she said nine words in six seconds: “Isn’t this the best president we’ve ever had?”
Then she walked away.
Colom’s appearance outside the rally followed his strategy of criticizing Trump’s policies — particularly the war in Iran and tariffs that he said were particularly harsh on Mississippi farmers — without personally attacking the president or the people who voted for him. Instead, he systematically placed the blame on Hyde-Smith, portraying her as a nobody in Washington — a criticism that resonated in a state accustomed to longtime senators like Thad Cochran, Trent Lott and John Stennis, all of whom rose to powerful positions and funneled federal money to Mississippi.
There is a certain irony in Hyde-Smith losing to Colom. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden appointed Colom to be a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and former Gov. Haley Barbour, who is also a former national Republican chairwoman, supported the nomination.
Hyde-Smith, however, blocked Colom’s confirmation, as part of Senate tradition that members can improve a president’s picks for federal judicial posts in their home states. Colom said his campaign was never about getting revenge on Hyde-Smith.
Colom spoke about the history of Mississippi
The senator-elect concluded his campaign with an ad showing him at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who in 1963 was shot in his driveway by a white supremacist and died in front of his family.
“In Mississippi, no one is above the law, and no one should escape its protection,” Colom said, recounting the story of Evers’ military service in Normandy during World War II, his voter registration efforts in Mississippi, his assassination and the three decades it took to secure a conviction.
“He was killed for helping Mississippians vote,” Colom said. “On Tuesday, use your vote and honor all those who died for this right.”
Schumer helped Colom raise money, and he gained financial support from other outside players, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire and potential presidential candidate.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for Colom in the final weeks of the campaign.
Despite Republican domination, the path was still there
Because of its black population and its alignment with Democrats, Mississippi’s general elections have for years been closer than those of its immediate southern neighbors. Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential elections, but in 2023, Republican Governor Tate Reeves managed to win re-election by a margin of just 3 percentage points.
Colom and other Black party leaders and strategists have insisted throughout 2026 that he could narrow the gap through strong Black turnout, discontent among Republican voters and an uptick in Democrats’ usual share of the white vote in Mississippi.
The results showed high turnout in the Mississippi Delta and its concentration of majority-black counties. But almost the entire state has shifted to the left since the 2024 election, when Trump won Mississippi by nearly 23 points.
Then-Gov. Phil Bryant first nominated Hyde-Smith, who was state agriculture commissioner, to the Senate in 2018, when Cochran resigned. She won a special runoff election in 2018 and a full term in 2020. Each time, she defeated Democrat Mike Espy, a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture who was also Mississippi’s first black member of Congress since Reconstruction.
During the extended vote count, Colom acknowledged the historic nature of doing what Espy could not do. But he said he views his place more in terms of other Mississippians, particularly its younger residents, than in terms of his individual history.
“My job is to do well enough as the next United States senator that the next time a young black boy or girl has the work ethic and the vision and the values,” he said, “and they want to be a United States senator, no one says because of everything I’ve done they shouldn’t have a chance.”
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Barrow reported from Atlanta and Washington.
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