JACKSON, Miss. — Democrat Scott Colom, the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District, has been declared the winner over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a result few expected in a state Republicans have dominated for decades. The race was called Wednesday evening, and Hyde-Smith released a statement that night conceding and saying she respected the choice of the state’s voters.
The margin was under 5,000 votes with a small share of ballots still being tallied, following more than a week of counting and curing of affidavit ballots after the Nov. 3 election.
Colom becomes the first Democrat Mississippi has sent to the Senate since John C. Stennis won his last term in 1982. He is also the first Black senator from the state since the Reconstruction era, when Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce held seats; Bruce left office in 1881. No sitting Mississippi senator had lost re-election since 1942.
He carried traditionally Democratic Hinds County, home to the capital, and also won Forrest County, which President Donald Trump took with roughly 58 percent in 2024.
Colom has served as district attorney since 2016 in a district that includes his hometown of Columbus in Lowndes County. His path to Washington ran through an earlier clash with his opponent: Hyde-Smith blocked his 2023 nomination by former President Joe Biden to a federal judgeship, and it never advanced.
His campaign focused on health care access, keeping rural hospitals open and the cost of living. Roughly two weeks before Election Day, a political action committee aligned with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put $1.2 million into advertising for him.
About a thousand supporters gathered for his victory celebration on the lawn of Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Jackson. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, for years the state’s only Democrat and only Black member of its congressional delegation, told the crowd he now has a partner in Washington.
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