Democrat Scott Colom has won Mississippi’s US Senate seat, defeating Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in the closest Senate race in the country.
The Associated Press called the race for Colom on Wednesday evening, more than a week after Election Day. Election workers spent the extra days counting absentee and affidavit ballots across the state.
With 99 percent of the vote counted, Colom led Hyde-Smith 49.2 percent to 48.7 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal. His lead stood at more than 4,500 votes, and Hyde-Smith conceded on Wednesday evening, according to his campaign.
The result breaks two long records. Colom is the first Democrat Mississippi has elected to the Senate since 1982, and the first Black senator from the state since Reconstruction. The last Black senator from Mississippi, Blanche Bruce, was elected by the state legislature in 1874.
Colom, 43, is a district attorney from Columbus who built his campaign around economic issues and government accountability. He is a seventh-generation Mississippian, according to CNN.
The win expands the Democratic majority in the new Senate to 55 seats, with the race in Alaska still undecided, according to the Associated Press. Mississippi has the highest share of Black voters in the country, close to 40 percent, and President Trump won the state by 23 points in 2024.
Source: The Clarion Ledger
