Mississippi elects its first Black senator in 150 years giving Democrats a 55-seat majority

Detailed summary

Democrat Scott Colom defeats Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in nail-biter Senate race

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Blanche Bruce was born into slavery in 1841. He later served one term as a U.S. senator from Mississippi. He was the second — and the last — Black senator from a state at the violent heart of the nation’s civil rights struggle.

Nearly 150 years later, Mississippi voters elected Scott Colom, who is poised to be the first Black candidate elected to the U.S. Senate from the Deep South state since the aftermath of the Civil War.

Colom’s election will oust Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and add to an explosive series of Democratic victories in midterm elections that have shifted the balance of power in Congress and are likely to derail the final two years of Donald Trump’s administration.

Colom’s victory also is a seismic rebuke against threats to the ballot box and the relics of a bloody history that made Mississippi among the hardest places to vote in the country.

Mississippi was one of two states alongside Alaska where Americans are still eagerly anticipating the results of Senate elections more than one week after Election Day. Democrats are projected to hold at least 55 seats in the Senate and more than 255 seats in the House of Representatives.

“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Hyde-Smith said in a video statement Wednesday night. “I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”

This week, all eyes were on Hinds County, Mississippi’s most populous county and a Democratic stronghold that spans the state’s capital of Jackson, where election officials tallied remaining ballots on Wednesday.

Most of the remaining ballots in the state are affidavit ballots, which voters cast if they did not bring identification with them to the polls or were listed as having an inactive voter registration.

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