Sen.-elect Scott Colom says investing in South can help Democrats achieve ‘sustainable majority’

Sen.-elect Scott Colom, D-Miss., stressed on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Democrats need to invest more in Southern states like Mississippi, where he flipped a blue seat for the first time in decades.

“What we need to do now, as the Democratic Party, is understand that we cannot continue to allow this lack of investment,” he said Sunday.

Colom’s projected victory this month brought Democrats to a 55-seat majority in the Senate, with Alaska’s Senate race yet to be called. Her victory over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith marked a seismic political shift in a state that last elected a Democrat to the Senate 44 years ago and has not had a Black senator since the Reconstruction period.

Colom called on Democrats to focus more on states like Mississippi, a view he emphasized again on Sunday.

“We need to put senators like me in positions where we can take action for the rural South, where we can be leaders in a way that shows voters in rural America that we care, voters in the Deep South that we want them to succeed,” Colom said.

“And if we do that, I think we can have competitive elections every cycle and put ourselves in positions where we can have a sustainable majority,” he continued.

In the same interview, Colom identified revamping pricing policies as his top priority to reduce prices.

“We need to fight for low tariffs to reduce costs that help our farmers because they’ve lost customers because of these tariffs, and we need to do everything we can to help them get those customers back,” Colom said.

He also called for raising the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and has not been increased since 2009.

NBC News exit polls indicated that the cost of living was a top priority for voters. NBC’s exit polls showed that 89 percent of voters considered the cost of living “crucial” or a “major factor” in considering their vote for Congress. The same exit polls found that 66% of voters thought Trump’s tariff policies were hurting the nation’s economy.

Colom was also asked on “Meet the Press” whether he would vote to reinstate the nation’s right to abortion. The Mississippi senator-elect said he is “personally pro-life because I’m a Christian” and doesn’t “believe in late-term abortions.” He also said he didn’t think victims of rape or incest should be “forced” to “have this child.”

“I will study what is good for my values ​​and for Mississippi and I will try to represent those values ​​in Washington as best I can,” he said.

One of the tasks remaining in Congress this year is for Democrats to choose their party’s leadership. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, announced last week that he would challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for Senate Majority Leader.

When asked who he planned to support, Colom said he was in “listening mode” and did not commit to either candidate.

“I don’t know either of them very well, so I’m going to listen to what other people tell me about them, and I’m going to find out what are the things that people do well in leadership, what are the things that they don’t do well, and find out how we can work together to get results,” Colom said.