Mississippi elects first Democratic senator in 44 years as Dems finally find a winning strategy: Spend nothing and let the other candidate talk beef

Detailed summary

Scott Colom beat a cattle rancher senator who suggested other proteins as beef prices rose. If Alaska follows, Democrats get to 56 Senate seats.

For four decades, the typical plan the national Democratic Party had for Mississippi was to leave it alone. Seems like they finally found their winning strategy: Democrat Scott Colom has narrowly eked out a razor-thin win over incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, and arguably, it was because he let her do the talking.

Colom is the first Democrat Mississippi sent to the Senate since noted segregationist John Stennis won his last term in 1982. Mississippi, which up until last week’s elections was nearly unanimously rated as a solid Republican state, is the only state in the country that doesn’t allow automatic recounts, meaning the loser has to go to court to get the votes reexamined.

What’s notable about the race is the sheer lack of attention it has garnered (at least, up until recently) and how Colom even became a viable contender in the first place. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom, a district attorney, to the federal bench in northern Mississippi. Mississippi’s senior senator, Republican Roger Wicker, supported him. Hyde-Smith blocked the nomination in 2023, citing his “opposition to legislation to protect female athletes” and past support from a PAC funded by George Soros. Had she let it through, Colom might be a federal judge today instead of her successor. Two years later, he announced his campaign against her.

Likely Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saw an opening. He told the New York Times in 2025 he wanted to help elect a Democrat in Mississippi and find other winning tickets in states that would be relatively cheap to compete in. While he referenced Colom at the time, Colom said Schumer isn’t why he ran: in his launch video, he referenced his two daughters and Hyde-Smith’s vote for a law he said would cut more than 100,000 Mississippians from their health care.

That kitchen table economic sentiment may be why Colom won in a state represented, for now, by a cattle rancher.

In February, a reporter asked Hyde-Smith, who also married a…

Colom’s…

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