Mississippi Sends First Black Senator Since Reconstruction as Democratic Wave Flips Deep-Red Seat

District attorney Scott Colom's upset over Cindy Hyde-Smith marks Mississippi's first Democratic Senate win since 1982 and first Black senator since 1875, pushing the party to 55 Senate seats.

Scott Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney from Mississippi, defeated incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith to become the first Black senator from the state since Reconstruction — and the first ever popularly elected. The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday after days of counting made clear Hyde-Smith could not close the gap. Mississippi had not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.

The win is the sharpest edge of a national midterm wave against Donald Trump's administration. With Colom's addition, Democrats hold at least 55 Senate seats — the party's largest midterm pickup since 1986. Across the south, Trump's attempt to redraw Black-majority congressional districts appears to have backfired, motivating the very voters it sought to marginalize. Colom ran an aggressively unorthodox campaign for deep-red Mississippi. He attended a Trump rally for Hyde-Smith in Corinth to speak directly with the president's supporters about gas prices, groceries, and health insurance. He drove a "pick your protein" taco truck around the state after a viral ad lampooned Hyde-Smith's tone-deaf answer about rising beef costs. Late endorsements from Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Bill Clinton signaled national Democratic investment as polls tightened. The personal backstory carries structural weight. Colom is a seventh-generation Mississippian whose Republican father campaigned for Ronald Reagan and was friendly with longtime senator Thad Cochran. In 2015, Colom unseated a 30-year incumbent to become the first Black district attorney for the 16th circuit, compiling a 94% conviction rate. Joe Biden nominated him for a federal judgeship; Hyde-Smith personally blocked his confirmation hearing — then bragged about it on election night. Hyde-Smith's concession was brief and gracious in a two-minute video. But her election-night declaration — "I assure you, I will continue to be your US senator" — hung awkwardly over the counting period. Colom's response at a press conference the next day was three words: "Bless her heart." Mississippi has no automatic recount law. Any challenge would require county-by-county lawsuits — a fragmented process that makes a statewide reversal functionally implausible. National groups from both parties, including the DSCC and the Elias Law Group, deployed hundreds of volunteers and attorneys to oversee counting across all 82 counties. The historical layering is impossible to miss. Mississippi was the first state to send Black lawmakers to Congress. Blanche K. Bruce, the last Black senator from the state, was born into slavery. John C. Stennis, the last Democrat sent from Mississippi, was a staunch segregationist for most of his career. Colom's victory at Tougaloo College — a historically Black institution — closes one of American politics' longest arcs.