| |
Mississippi Elects Dem. Scott Colom 11/12 06:05
Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on
Wednesday in Mississippi's closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged
ballot counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since
post-Civil War Reconstruction.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in Mississippi's closely contested U.S.
Senate race after a prolonged ballot counting process, giving the state its
first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Colom's narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been
controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations despite having the
largest share of Black residents of any U.S. state. The outcome adds to a
decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats
in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats'
argument that their future runs through the American South.
"All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this," Colom told a
crowd of hundreds who 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."
The Associated Press called the race in Colom's favor after local officials
spent several days processing absentee and provisional ballots, called
affidavit ballots in Mississippi.
The last time Mississippi chose a new Democratic senator was 1947; the
winner was a staunch segregationist. Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor,
capitalized on the state's large Black population, discontent with the economy
and Hyde-Smith's missteps as she sought a second full term.
"They actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually
cares about what they think, actually cares about what they're going through,"
Colom said in the campaign's closing stretch.
Hyde-Smith, 67, called Colom late Wednesday afternoon to concede and
released a concession speech online shortly afterward.
"While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the
decision of Mississippi voters," Hyde-Smith said. "I want to congratulate Scott
Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of
representing our great state."
Colom said during the campaign that he could represent all of Mississippi, a
state where racial divisions have long defined its politics and society, and he
repeated that pledge after his victory.
"My commitment to you, each and every one of you, is that first I'm going to
treat your children like I want my children to be treated," Colom said. "I'm
going to treat your parents the way I want my parents to be treated. I'm gonna
treat your future the way I want my future to be" and "work to make every
Mississippian's life better."
National Democrats, activists and Mississippians celebrate
Party leaders hailed the senator-elect's triumph, with nods to the South's
emerging status as a political battleground after other victories from North
Carolina and South Carolina to Georgia and Texas.
"Scott ran the campaign of a lifetime and re-imagined what's possible for
Democrats in the South," Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York
posted online.
Former President Bill Clinton, a native Arkansan who campaigned with Colom
days before the election, addressed the senator-elect on social media, saying
he won "because you believe in the promise of your state's people. And they
believed in you right back."
Vera Finley was among those supporters.
"I am here to celebrate my parents and my grandparents. I am not one
generation out of the cotton fields," Finley said ahead of Colom's victory
speech. "Both of my parents picked cotton. And my great-grandmother was sold
here as a slave from Virginia to here. So I am so excited to be on this side of
history."
Another Mississippian, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, issued a statement
saying the state's voters, most notably Black voters, "made history because
they refused to be intimidated, discouraged, or counted out" in a state that
has seen "some of the nation's most difficult battles for voting rights."
A race Washington once viewed as a long shot
The contest was a latecomer to the national spotlight, finally drawing
attention and money months after Black senators, including Georgia's Raphael
Warnock and Maryland's Angela Alsobrooks, first urged donors and party leaders
to see it as winnable.
The son of a onetime Republican who worked for President Ronald Reagan,
Colom produced one of the year's most widely circulated ads. After Hyde-Smith
seemed to brush off high beef prices by saying consumers could choose other
proteins, Colom cut a 30-second spot depicting incredulous voters saying they'd
"pick another senator instead."
When Trump came to Corinth, Mississippi, in late October to rally with
Hyde-Smith, Colom walked the line of Trump supporters as they waited to enter.
He introduced himself and asked about their concerns.
Later, when Trump called Hyde-Smith to the stage, she said only nine words
in six seconds before stepping away: "Is this not the best president in our
lifetime?"
Colom's appearance outside the rally tracked his strategy of criticizing
Trump's policies -- especially the Iran war that drove up gas prices and
tariffs that caused headaches for Mississippi farmers -- without taking
personal jabs at the president or people who voted for him. Instead, he
consistently put the onus on Hyde-Smith, framing her as a nonentity in
Washington -- a critique that resonated in a state accustomed to long-serving,
powerful senators.
There is some irony in Hyde-Smith losing to Colom. In 2022, President Joe
Biden nominated Colom to be a U.S. District Court judge. Mississippi's senior
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and former Gov. Haley Barbour, who is also a
former national Republican chairman, backed the nomination.
Hyde-Smith, however, blocked Colom's confirmation. Colom said his campaign
was never about getting even with Hyde-Smith.
Colom called on Mississippi's history
The senator-elect concluded his campaign with an ad that featured him at the
Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who, in 1963, was gunned
down in his driveway by a white supremacist.
Colom told the story of Evers' military service at Normandy in World War II,
his voter registration efforts in Mississippi, his assassination and the three
decades it took to win a conviction. "He was killed for helping Mississippians
vote," Colom said. "On Tuesday, use your vote and honor everyone who died for
that right."
At the lectern Wednesday night, Colom said it was appropriate that the race
be called on Veterans Day, as he again paid tribute to Evers.
"He served his country, came home to Mississippi, and they wouldn't let him
vote," Colom said. "But he had faith that Mississippi could make progress."
Despite Republicans' domination, the path was always there
Because of the Black population and its alignment with Democrats,
Mississippi's general elections have been closer for years than its Southern
neighbors. Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential
contests, but in 2023, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves managed to win reelection by
a margin of just 3 percentage points.
Colom and other Black party leaders and strategists insisted throughout 2026
that he could narrow the gap with strong Black turnout, Republican discontent
and an uptick in Democrats' usual share of the white vote in Mississippi.
Results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta and its concentration
of majority Black counties. But nearly all of the state moved leftward from the
2024 election, when Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points.
Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate in 2018. She won a special election
runoff in 2018 and a full term in 2020. Both times she defeated Democrat Mike
Espy, a former U.S. agriculture secretary who'd also been Mississippi's first
Black congressman since Reconstruction.
During the extended vote count, Colom acknowledged the historic nature of
his candidacy but said he cares more about what it means for others.
"My job is to do well enough as the next United States senator that the next
time some young Black boy or girl has the work ethic, the vision and the
values," he said, "and they want to be United States senator, that nobody says
because of anything I've done that they shouldn't get a chance."
Get your local Cash Bids emailed to you each morning from DTN – click here to sign up for DTN Snapshot.
|
|
