Democrat Scott Colom unseats GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in historic Mississippi upset to lift Senate majority to 55

Democratic district attorney Scott Colom pulled off one of the most consequential political upsets in modern Southern history late Wednesday, unseating Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith after eight days of ballot counting to become the first Black U.S. senator elected from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction and the first Democrat the state has sent to the chamber in 44 years.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting following the completion of affidavit and absentee tallies in Hinds and Rankin counties, Colom led Hyde-Smith 49.2 percent to 48.7 percent — a margin of 4,645 votes — with independent candidate Ty Pinkins drawing the remainder when major U.S. decision desks projected the race Wednesday evening.

Hyde-Smith, who had held the seat since 2018, telephoned Colom to concede before posting a video statement thanking supporters. “While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Hyde-Smith said, congratulating Colom as crowds gathered in downtown Jackson behind a lectern placard reading “Picked Another Senator.” According to Colom’s campaign, the senator-elect replied on their phone call, “God bless you, thank you senator.”

Historic Reconstruction milestone and a 55-seat Democratic Senate

Colom’s victory shatters multiple decades-long political barriers in a state President Donald Trump carried comfortably and visited in the campaign’s closing days to rally support for Hyde-Smith. When the new Congress convenes in January, Colom will assume the Mississippi Senate seat once held in 1870 by Hiram Revels, the first Black American ever to serve in the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Black candidate elected to any statewide office in Mississippi in more than 145 years and the first challenger since the 1940s to defeat a sitting Mississippi senator.

Nationally, the flip expands the incoming Senate Democratic majority to at least 55 of the chamber’s 100 seats — leaving newly elected Senate Republican Minority Leader John Thune with an even narrower caucus as votes continue to be counted in Alaska, where Democrat Mary Peltola holds a lead over Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan that could lift Democrats to 56 seats. That cushion gives Democrats wider margin on federal judicial confirmations, Cabinet nominations, and intensifying oversight battles with the Trump White House.

From blocked judicial nominee to replacing the senator who vetoed him

For Colom and his supporters, Wednesday’s outcome carried sharp institutional irony. In 2023, Hyde-Smith used the Senate’s single-state “blue slip” custom to single-handedly block President Joe Biden’s nomination of Colom — a prosecutor from Columbus in northern Mississippi — to fill a U.S. District Court vacancy.

“Scott may have wanted to be a judge, but God saw fit for him to be someone who appoints judges,” longtime Colom friend Jabari O. Edwards told The New York Times as supporters celebrated in Jackson.

Rather than running a nationalized ideological race, Colom anchored his campaign relentlessly on grocery bills, gasoline prices, and rural hospital pressures, nicknaming the incumbent “Cindy High Prices” and courting college voters, Black turnout networks, suburban independents, and working-class conservatives frustrated by inflation.

The defining moment of the race arrived via a sub-30-second viral campaign ad seizing on footage of Hyde-Smith — a cattle rancher — responding to a question about surging beef prices by telling shoppers they had “so many proteins to choose from.” Colom’s campaign answered with Mississippians firing up backyard grills under the slogan “Pick Another Senator Instead,” a message amplified during a late-October northeast Mississippi campaign swing alongside former President Bill Clinton that ultimately carried Colom narrowly across the finish line.