Photo credit: Scott Colom for Senate
By BallotWire
11/11/2026
The Wire: Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, flipping a seat in one of the reddest states in the country and becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi since 1982.
Why it counts: The result is one of the cycle's most stunning Senate flips, coming in a state President Trump carried by 23 points in 2024. Colom, 43, will also be Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, when Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce represented the state in the 1870s. His win was the eighth Republican-held Senate seat Democrats flipped this year, pushing the party’s new majority to 55.
The margin: Colom leads with about 49.2% of the vote, ahead of Hyde-Smith by roughly 4,600 votes out of nearly one million cast. The count stretched across days, and his lead grew as officials counted additional ballots. The totals remain unofficial pending certification.
The fine print: The contest also carried an unusual backstory. In 2023, after President Biden nominated Colom, then the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Circuit District, to a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Hyde-Smith blocked the nomination by declining to return the “blue slip” that, by Senate tradition, lets a home-state senator advance a district court nominee. The nomination was never confirmed. Three years later, Colom unseated the senator who had kept him off the bench.
On the record: Colom campaigned on improving economic opportunities for working families and bringing new leadership to Mississippi, framing his candidacy as a bid to deliver for a state long passed over in statewide Democratic contests.
The backdrop: Colom’s victory capped a midterm in which Democrats broke through in places they had written off for years, turning a Senate map that began the cycle looking narrow into a string of upsets reaching deep into Republican territory.
Looking ahead: Colom will be sworn in with the new Congress in January. Alaska remains the last uncalled Senate race, and its outcome will set the final size of the Democratic majority.