Scott Colom Defeats Cindy Hyde-Smith, Becoming Mississippi's First Black Senator Since Reconstruction

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi's Senate race, leading by 4,669 votes when the AP called it Wednesday. He becomes the state's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction and gives Democrats 55 seats in the next Congress.

Nov 12, 2026 - 08:15

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Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi's U.S. Senate race on Wednesday, eight days after Election Day, becoming the state's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, The Associated Press reported. The AP called the race just before 6 p.m. Eastern after a prolonged count of absentee and affidavit ballots, and Hyde-Smith conceded in a video message that evening.

Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney from Columbus, is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi since 1982, NBC News reported. Donald Trump carried the state by 23 percentage points in 2024.

How the race was called

Colom led by just 43 votes after the final election-night update, which arrived from Pike County at 3:03 a.m. Eastern on Nov. 4, according to the AP's explanation of its race call. His lead grew as counties finished counting and reviewing provisional ballots, and he won all 12 county vote updates released on Wednesday. The decisive update came from Jackson County, a Republican-leaning county that added 2,173 votes and that Colom won by just over 1 percentage point. That left him ahead by 4,669 votes out of 962,237 counted, a margin of 0.5 percentage points.

Unofficial results showed Colom with 49.2% of the vote to Hyde-Smith's 48.7%, with an estimated 99% of ballots counted, TIME reported, citing the AP. The AP estimated that fewer than 12,000 votes remained to be reviewed before Friday's deadline for counties to certify results, many of them affidavit ballots that may not ultimately be counted.

Mississippi's 82 counties process their own absentee and affidavit ballots, the state's term for provisional ballots, and must send results to Secretary of State Michael Watson's office by Nov. 13, Mississippi Today reported. State election officials said Wednesday that 19,218 affidavit ballots had been processed statewide, with about 74% accepted, according to DeSoto County News. In Hinds County, a Democratic stronghold, officials rejected roughly two-thirds of affidavit ballots on Wednesday, Democracy Docket reported.

Mississippi has no recount law, so Hyde-Smith would have needed to persuade a court to order a review, the AP noted. Of about 40 statewide recounts since 2000, only three changed the winner, and each of those was decided by hundreds of votes rather than thousands, according to the AP.

Concession and victory speech

"While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," Hyde-Smith said in her video message. "I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state." A spokesperson for Hyde-Smith said she called Colom to concede before the video was posted, and Colom ended the call by saying, "God bless you and thank you, Senator," TIME reported.

Speaking to supporters at Tougaloo College on Wednesday night, Colom said, "All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this," according to NBC News. "I had the courage to believe in Mississippi." He pledged to represent "the ones that voted for me, the ones that didn't vote for me and the ones that didn't vote," and told the crowd, according to TIME, "There were times when I couldn't get donors to answer the phone, they didn't believe a moment like this was possible, but I kept the faith."

Gov. Tate Reeves congratulated the senator-elect and said he hopes to work with him on jobs, wages and education, while state Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst said Colom "ran a good campaign," DeSoto County News reported.

A campaign built on costs

Colom centered his campaign on prices, labeling his opponent "Cindy High Prices" and criticizing her support for Trump's tariffs, her vote for the bill that cut Medicaid funding and the war with Iran, NBC News reported. His campaign also released a widely shared video built around Hyde-Smith's remark that Mississippians facing high beef prices had "so many proteins to choose from."

Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner appointed to the Senate in 2018, campaigned as a reliable conservative, called Colom a "radical" progressive and stressed her loyalty to Trump, who endorsed her more than a year before the election, according to NBC News. A majority of Mississippi voters in NBC News exit polling said they disapproved of Trump's job performance. The two had a history: Hyde-Smith blocked Colom's nomination to a federal judgeship during the Biden administration.

A historic seat and a wider majority

Colom will follow Hiram Revels, who in 1870 became the first Black American elected to the Senate, and Blanche K. Bruce, the first Black American elected to a full Senate term, both of whom were chosen by the Mississippi legislature during Reconstruction, according to the U.S. Senate Historical Office. That makes Colom the first Black senator elected directly by Mississippi voters, Democracy Docket noted. NAACP President Derrick Johnson told NBC News the result proves "it is possible to win in the South when there's investment."

The win is the eighth Republican-held Senate seat Democrats have flipped this year and gives the party 55 seats in the next Congress, its largest midterm gain in the chamber since 1986, the AP reported. Democrats will still fall short of the 60 votes generally needed to overcome a filibuster, TIME noted. The only Senate race left uncalled is in Alaska, according to NBC News, and Mississippi's county results remain unofficial until certification on Friday.