Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested Senate election, becoming the first Black person elected to represent the state in the US Senate since the Reconstruction era.
Colom’s victory, projected by CNN and NBC News after days of ballot counting, ends more than 44 years of Democratic absence in Mississippi’s Senate representation and marks a major political shift in the traditionally Republican stronghold.
The 43-year-old former prosecutor secured the historic victory after a closely fought contest in which Hyde-Smith initially led before Colom gained ground as absentee and provisional ballots were counted.
Speaking to supporters at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, Colom described the victory as a collective achievement and expressed confidence in the state’s political future.
“For months and months, I’ve been telling everybody, everywhere I go, that we’re going to win this election,” he said.
“Because it’s not something that I did, y’all. It’s something that we did. All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this.”
Colom added that he believed in Mississippi and wanted to demonstrate to the rest of the country that the state mattered.
His victory makes him the first Black US senator from Mississippi since Blanche K. Bruce, who served in the Senate from 1875 to 1881 after being born into slavery.
It also makes him the first Democrat elected to the state’s Senate seat since 1982.
The outcome represents the eighth Senate seat Democrats have flipped from Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, giving the party a projected minimum 55-seat majority heading into 2027, with votes still being counted in Alaska.
National Urban League President and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Morial, described Colom’s victory as one of the most significant political achievements in American history, considering Mississippi’s history of racial segregation and discrimination.
He said the result represented the possibility of a new political direction for the South and could make other statewide elections in Mississippi more competitive.
Colom’s victory came despite earlier predictions favouring Hyde-Smith, including an assessment by the Cook Political Report that classified the seat as likely to remain Republican.
Mississippi had also voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, with the Republican winning the state by more than 23 percentage points.
During his campaign, Colom focused on the cost of living, higher wages, healthcare affordability and the protection of rural hospitals.
He repeatedly used the slogan, “lower costs, higher wages, save our health care, save our hospitals,” while campaigning across the state.
He also criticised Hyde-Smith over what he described as her reluctance to engage directly with voters through town hall meetings and media interviews.
Colom’s campaign gained momentum through extensive grassroots mobilisation, social media engagement and visits to communities across Mississippi. According to the USA TODAY Network, he flipped at least 18 counties that had voted for Trump in 2024.
The election was so closely contested that both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee deployed legal teams to monitor the ballot-counting process.
The contest also revived an earlier political disagreement between the two candidates.
In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination to become a federal judge after then-President Joe Biden nominated him to serve on the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.
Hyde-Smith declined to submit the required blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee, effectively preventing the nomination from advancing. She had cited Colom’s position on transgender rights as a reason for her opposition.
About two and a half years later, Colom entered the Senate race against her and emerged victorious.
Reacting to the result, NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Mississippi voters had made history by refusing to be intimidated or discouraged.
Colom’s election is expected to reshape the state’s political representation and further intensify attention on the changing electoral landscape in the American South.