Democrat Scott Colom has won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, The Associated Press, NBC News and CNN projected Wednesday, defeating Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith after days of ballot counting.
Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, will be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi since John Stennis in 1982 and the state’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, according to Reuters, AP and NBC News.
The Associated Press made its call after Colom’s lead grew to 4,669 votes on Wednesday, the Guardian reported, citing AP. Reuters said the contest was so close that Colom at times led by only a few dozen votes as state officials counted ballots in the days after the Nov. 3 midterm election.
The result flips a Republican-held seat in a state President Donald Trump carried by nearly 23 points in 2024, Reuters and NBC News reported. NBC News said the victory means Democrats will hold at least 55 Senate seats in the next Congress, with Alaska’s Senate race the only one still uncalled. Reuters reported that Democrats had already secured control of both chambers of Congress in this year’s midterms.
Hyde-Smith, 67, was appointed to the Senate in 2018 and won a full term in 2020, NBC News reported. Trump campaigned in Mississippi for her near the end of the race, according to Reuters. In 2023, she blocked Colom’s nomination by then-President Joe Biden to a federal district judgeship, Reuters reported; Mississippi’s other senator, Republican Roger Wicker, had supported the nomination.