Democrat Scott Colom wins Mississippi Senate seat in historic upset

Detailed summary

Election of the first Black senator in the state since 1880s comes in one of the country’s most reliably red states ...

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Cindy Hyde-Smith, the incumbent Republican senator, to become the first Black senator in Mississippi elected the post-civil war reconstruction era, in a stunning upset after more than a week of vote counting in one of the country’s most reliably red states.

“All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this,” Colom told a crowd of hundreds who on Wednesday had gathered at Tougaloo College for his victory party. “I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we can show the country that Mississippi matters.”

Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, said there were times his long-shot campaign felt defeated but “I had to have faith.”

Colom opened up a narrow lead over Hyde-Smith late on election night. His lead widened as election officials counted absentee and provisional ballots. The Associated Press called the contest on Wednesday, after it was clear Hyde-Smith was not able to close the gap.

In a two-minute concession video shared on social media, Hyde-Smith said: “While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters.”

She offered her congratulations to Colom and said she wished him well “as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state”.

Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the US senate since 1982. It has been much longer – not since 1875 – that the state sent a Black senator to Washington.

With Colom’s election, Mississippi, the first state to send Black lawmakers to Congress, has sent more Black people to the US senate than any other state besides Illinois. Blanche K Bruce, the last Black man elected to the senate from Mississippi, was born into slavery; John C Stennis, the last Democrat to be sent from Mississippi, was, for most of his career, a staunch segregationist.

Colom’s election capped a national wave of anger at Donald Trump’s administration, sweeping away Republicans in places where Democrats hadn’t…

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Irish Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.