Democrat Scott Colom defeats Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi Senate race
Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely fought US Senate race, according to projections by the Associated Press after more than a week of ballot counting. Colom, 43, becomes the first Black senator elected by Mississippi since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and the first newly elected Democratic senator from the state since 1947.
The result is particularly significant in a state whose politics have been dominated for generations by white conservatives and where racial divisions remain deeply rooted. Colom campaigned on representing rural, suburban and urban Mississippi alike, promising a Democratic Party focused on improving voters’ lives rather than on narrow regional or partisan identities.
The margin was exceptionally small: at some points Colom led by only a few dozen votes, while the latest media-tabulated results put him more than 4,500 votes ahead, or 0.5 percentage points. Hyde-Smith, 67, conceded after calling Colom. She had been first elected in 2018 and had consistently led in opinion polls, while Donald Trump had carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points in 2024.
Colom’s victory gives Democrats a 55–44 advantage in the 100-member Senate, with Alaska’s race still undecided. Democrats have also taken control of the House of Representatives, according to the results cited in the report. The Mississippi upset forms part of a broader midterm setback for Trump’s Republican Party and is likely to strengthen Democratic arguments that the party can compete more effectively across the US South.
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