Democrats Finally Score Most Stunning Election Upset of All

Detailed summary

Democrat Scott Colom has finally been called as winner of the Mississippi Senate race—more than a week after voting closed. CNN and NBC News both called the race for Colom over…

Democrat Scott Colom has finally been called as winner of the Mississippi Senate race—more than a week after voting closed.

CNN and NBC News both called the race for Colom over Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith after days of counting, instantly propelling Colom into the history books.

It is the first time Mississippi has elected a Democrat to the Senate in more than 40 years, since 1982.

It is also the first time Mississippi will have a Black senator since the Reconstruction era after the Civil War.

For days, election officials across the state counted provisional ballots as the results remained razor-thin. The deadline to remedy affidavit ballots was November 10, so it was then just a matter of time before the final count came in.

At the time NBC called the race, Colom led Hyde-Smith by 4,669 votes with 98.8 percent of the vote counted. If that margin holds, he will have won the state by half a percentage point.

Throughout the process, Colom largely maintained a lead over Hyde-Smith that continued to grow.

The Democratic district attorney remained confident that when the process was finished and all eligible ballots were counted, he would become the next senator of Mississippi.

As of Wednesday afternoon, he had a more than 4,400-vote lead, making it largely impossible for Hyde-Smith to catch up.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Daily Beast. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.