Democrat Scott Colom wins Mississippi Senate race, defeating Cindy Hyde-Smith

Democrat Scott Colom has won Mississippi's US Senate race, defeating Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, according to projections by the Associated Press and NBC News on Wednesday 11 November. The race was called more than a week after the 3 November election, once local officials had finished processing absentee and provisional ballots, which Mississippi calls affidavit ballots, the AP reported in a story carried by PBS NewsHour.

Neither the AP report carried by PBS nor NBC News gave final vote totals. The AP described Colom's victory as narrow, and NBC News said he had held a "razor-thin lead" while votes were counted.

Concession

Hyde-Smith conceded in a video message on Wednesday evening, and Colom's campaign confirmed that she had called him, NBC News reported. "While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," she said, according to NBC News.

Colom said he would represent "the ones that voted for me, the ones that didn't vote for me and the ones that didn't vote," NBC News reported. He also told supporters: "We were never a lost cause. We were a betrayed cause."

The candidates

Colom, 43, is a district attorney whose district covers Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties, according to the AP. Hyde-Smith, 67, was appointed to the Senate in 2018 by then-Governor Phil Bryant after Thad Cochran resigned, and won a special election runoff that year and a full term in 2020, defeating Democrat Mike Espy both times, the AP reported.

In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom to a federal district court seat. Hyde-Smith blocked the nomination under the Senate custom that allows home-state senators to hold up judicial nominees, according to the AP.

Both the AP and NBC News reported that Colom will be Mississippi's first Black US senator since Reconstruction. NBC News said he will be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi since 1982.

The wider picture

President Donald Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points in 2024. The AP reported that results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta and movement toward Democrats in almost every part of the state compared with 2024. NBC News exit polling found that a majority of Mississippi voters disapproved of Trump's job performance.

NBC News reported that Colom is the eighth Democrat to win a Republican-held Senate seat in this year's elections, that Democrats will hold at least 55 Senate seats next year, and that Alaska is the only Senate race still to be called.

The AP said Colom's campaign had been backed with money or appearances by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Colom's campaign also drew attention to Hyde-Smith's comments at a Trump rally in Corinth in late October, according to the AP.