Scott Colom has unseated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi after more than a week of ballot counting.
Colom, the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District, becomes the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the Magnolia State since John Stennis in 1982. The 49-year-old prosecutor also makes history as the first Black senator from Mississippi since the Reconstruction era, when former slave Bruce Blance was elected in 1874.
With more than 95 percent of ballots tallied by Wednesday, Colom held 49.2 percent of the vote to Hyde-Smith’s 48.7 percent. The margin stood at less than 5,000 votes, prompting the extended count that stretched more than a week past Election Day.
Hyde-Smith, who was first appointed to the Senate in 2018 and won her 2020 race by a comfortable 10-point margin, broke her silence in a video posted on X.
“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Hyde-Smith said. “I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”
The victory hands Democrats an 11-seat majority in the US Senate and caps a string of shock wins in Republican strongholds. Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, South Carolina and Texas all flipped to Democratic candidates in what amounted to a massive rebuke of President Trump and the GOP government in Washington.
Trump had personally campaigned for Hyde-Smith in Mississippi as part of his midterm blitz, a desperate bid to shore up support in ruby-red territory. The state was one he carried by 22.9 percent in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points from his 2020 performance there, but polls had blared warning signs for Republicans heading into the final stretch.
Colom drew high-profile Democratic surrogates to bolster his bid. Former President Bill Clinton, ex-Vice President Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg all stumped for the district attorney on the campaign trail.
The Democratic wave began taking shape shortly after polls closed, when incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff cruised to victory in Georgia in what had been seen as a key pickup opportunity for Republicans. Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper was then declared winner in the Old North State, a flip for Democrats that was called remarkably quickly.
In South Carolina, Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham for the seat the late Sen. Lindsey Graham had held for more than two decades. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since 1932, with Adam Hamilton unseating incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall.
James Talarico delivered what analysts called the most shocking blow of the cycle, defeating Republican rival Ken Paxton in Texas with more than five million votes and 91 percent of ballots counted. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s three terms came to a crashing end as he conceded defeat to Gina Hinojosa, who had represented Texas’ 49th district in the state House of Representatives.
The Mississippi race was one of two Senate contests that had yet to be called, with Alaska still outstanding. In that contest, Democrat Mary Peltola leads incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan by about 2 percentage points.
Colom’s win gives Democrats their most commanding Senate majority in years and represents a dramatic reversal in a state that had not sent a Democrat to the chamber in more than four decades.