Democrat Scott Colom has won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, building upon his party’s wave of wins in states that have long favored Republicans.
After a week of vote drops that had been gradually increasing his lead, the Associated Press confirmed his upset victory over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday.
The state voted for President Trump in 2024 by a margin of more than 20 percentage points and had not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982.
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Ms. Hyde-Smith conceded in a video released shortly after the AP call.
“I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” she said. “While my time in the United States Senate may be coming to an end, my love for Mississippi and my determination to stand up for what is right never will.”
Both candidates initially projected confidence that the final count would favor them.
In the days after the election, Ms. Hyde-Smith and Mississippi Republicans said they expected late-arriving ballots to help her win reelection.
Mississippi counts all mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within the next five business days, meaning this year until Nov. 10.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, celebrated the news on social media.
“Blue Mississippi is here. Scott Colom is the only person who could’ve gotten this done. I knew it from the moment I met him,” Mr. Schumer said. “Scott ran the campaign of a lifetime and re-imagined what’s possible for Democrats in the South. He proved the polls, the pundits, and the prognosticators wrong at every turn.”
The Mississippi win is one of the cycle’s biggest upsets. The state’s last Democratic senator was John Stennis, a longtime segregationist and a product of completely different political alignments in the South.
Late into the race, Ms. Hyde-Smith was dismissive of her opponent. In a late-October interview with the TV station WLOX, Ms. Hyde-Smith reiterated that she would not debate Mr. Colom.
“He can’t get a crowd in a room if I wasn’t in there. So why would I even acknowledge that?” she said.
The president travelled to Mississippi in late October, where he rallied in support of Ms. Hyde-Smith.
The two had crossed paths before the election, as Ms. Hyde-Smith blocked Mr. Colom’s appointment by President Biden to be a U.S. district court judge in 2022.
Mr. Colom is now the first Black senator elected by his state since Republican Blanche K. Bruce in 1874.
Throughout his campaign, he slammed Ms. Hyde-Smith for her response to cost-of-living issues.
Ms. Hyde-Smith said in one interview that consumers had “so many proteins to choose from” when talking about elevated beef prices.
In a viral response video, Mr. Colom quipped, “pick another senator instead.”
Mr. Colom ran as a moderate on several issues, telling voters he was pro-Second Amendment and supported some of President Trump’s policies, such as eliminating taxes on tips.
“I always said there are things I thought Trump did well. I think he did a good job of securing the border. I think he did a good job of protecting Second Amendment rights,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“It was the stuff he did for the billionaires and the stuff he did to cut healthcare that I just disagree with,” he added. “If he focuses on working people, he’s going to have a partner. If he focuses on the billionaires, he can’t count on me.”
Mr. Colom’s win brings Democrats up to eight Senate seat flips so far, with Republican-held Alaska still being counted.
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