Democratic challenger Scott Colom narrowly won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, The Associated Press projected, ousting Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith after a surprisingly tight race in a deep-red state that took more than a week to call.
His victory makes him Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since the Reconstruction era and the first Democrat to win a Senate race there since 1982. This marks the eighth Senate seat Democrats have flipped this cycle.
“It’s not something that I did y’all, it’s something that we did,” Colom said during remarks celebrating his win on Wednesday evening. “All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this. I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we could show the country that Mississippi matters.”
Supporters have hailed this as a full-circle moment for Colom, whom former President Joe Biden once nominated for a federal district judgeship ― only to have Hyde-Smith block the nomination in 2023 by declining to return her blue slip.
Throughout the campaign, Colom had pitched himself as a district attorney with a high conviction rate and the ability to speak to voters across party lines.
As a self-described “commonsense Democrat,” he notably praised President Donald Trump’s border policies and has broken with his party on other issues such as trans women and girls participating in women’s sports.
Colom, however, saw a surge in national attention after a humor-led ad for him went viral online, ramping up his odds from long shot to serious contender. It featured voters mocking Hyde-Smith’s remark that consumers “have so many proteins to choose from” when she was asked about high beef prices in February.
The ad, which reached over 6.3 million views, featured a voter quipping back, “Pick another protein? Shiiii– I’d rather pick another senator instead.”
A sign at Colom’s victory party alluded to that catchphrase, reading simply “Picked Another Senator.”
Only in the eleventh hour did the race land on the radar of the Democratic establishment, which had largely counted out Mississippi this cycle — drawing criticism from some Democratic lawmakers. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the fundraising arm for Senate Democrats, had left Mississippi out of a $40-million investment in 10 battleground states ahead of the November midterm election.
Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), announced its first ad in the race on Oct. 20, a $1.2 million buy. Former Vice President Kamala Harris rallied with Colom two days later, and former President Barack Obama recorded an ad for him.
Colom on Wednesday nodded at the doubt he encountered at times during his campaign.
“There were times that I couldn’t get donors to answer the phone. They did not believe a moment like this was possible. But I kept the faith,” Colom said. “There were times when I did my first town hall in Jackson, Mississippi…less than ten people showed up, but I kept the faith.”
Colom’s lead grew to more than 4,600 votes as of this Wednesday, according to unofficial results from The Associated Press — still up from just a 65-vote lead on election night. But for days, the race remained too close to call.
Most of the delay came from a surge of affidavit ballots, the state’s term for provisional ballots that voters cast if they don’t have their identification with them at the polls or were listed as having inactive voter registrations.
In the weeks before Election Day, over 200,000 Mississippi voters were shifted to “inactive” status after the state used unverified commercial credit data to maintain its voter roll, which forced thousands of people to vote by affidavit, according to The Atlantic. Each ballot then had to be reviewed by county election commissioners in a public meeting.
Mississippi is one of three states, along with Alabama and New Hampshire, to not offer early in-person voting.