Scott Colom’s Upset Win Ends GOP Senate Hold in Mississippi

WHO:

CNN - Jacqueline Amos and other Black women organized voter-registration efforts and get-out-the-vote events for Colom; Amos said, “They did the heavy work.”

CNN - Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable executive director Cassandra Welchlin said the group registered about 600 new voters through its “Power of the Sister Vote” campaign.

CNN - Colom’s wife, Nadia, helped strategize efforts to mobilize young voters and Black women.

AlterNet - Scott Colom’s grandmother was a civil rights worker in Ripley, Mississippi; his father was a Reagan supporter who ran for Mississippi state treasurer as a Republican in the 1980s.

CBS News - Former President Bill Clinton joined Scott Colom on the campaign trail in the weeks before the election.

BBC News - Democrat Scott Colom won the Mississippi Senate race, becoming the first Black person from Mississippi elected to the U.S. Senate in more than 140 years.

NBC News - Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith; Colom is a district attorney.

CBS News - Colom, 43, is a district attorney and seventh-generation Mississippian. Hyde-Smith, 67, has served in the Senate since 2018 and was the first woman elected to represent Mississippi in Congress.

NBC News - Colom will be Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

NBC News - Colom received campaign support from former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sens. Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock, and former President Barack Obama, who appeared in a campaign ad. President Trump campaigned for Hyde-Smith and had endorsed her.

WHAT:

CNN - Black women made up 20% of Mississippi’s electorate, compared with 5% nationally, and Colom received 99% of their votes, according to CNN’s Voter Poll.

CNN - Patricia Smith said she was directed to cast an affidavit ballot after poll workers could not find her in the poll book; she said the system listed an address she had not lived at since 1991.

CNN - Thousands of Mississippi voters cast provisional ballots because they were missing from precinct poll books or lacked appropriate photo identification.

CNN - Black voters helped Democrat Jamie Davis come within 2 percentage points of winning Louisiana’s Senate race against Julia Letlow.

AlterNet - Colom closed his campaign with an advertisement filmed at the Jackson home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was killed in 1963. Colom said, “We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”

AlterNet - Republican strategist Stuart Stevens said Hyde-Smith would lose even if she won 90% of the outstanding ballots.

CBS News - National Democrats invested in Mississippi Senate-race advertising for the first time; Cook Political Report shifted the race from “solidly Republican” to “leaning Republican.”

NBC News - NBC News exit polling found a majority of Mississippi voters disapproved of President Trump’s job performance; majorities also said his policies, including tariffs, hurt the economy and opposed U.S. military action in Iran.

NBC News - Colom’s campaign released a viral video responding to Hyde-Smith’s comment that people facing high beef prices “have so many proteins to choose from.” The video showed people saying, “Pick another protein? I’d rather pick another senator.”

NBC News - Hyde-Smith had blocked Colom’s nomination for a federal judgeship during President Joe Biden’s administration; Colom said he had forgiven her.

ABC News - The Associated Press projected Colom’s victory with 99% of the expected vote reported: Colom had 49.2% and led Hyde-Smith by about 4,700 votes; Hyde-Smith had 48.7%.

CBS News - Colom’s projected victory was Democrats’ eighth Senate-seat flip. Democrats were set to control at least 55 Senate seats to Republicans’ 44, with Alaska’s race still a toss-up.

NBC News - Colom’s victory gave Democrats at least 55 seats in the next Congress; Alaska was the only Senate race left to be called.

NBC News - Colom said, “We were never a lost cause. We were betrayed cause,” and blamed Hyde-Smith for tariffs, Mississippians losing health care, and the war in Iran driving up costs.

NBC News - Colom criticized Hyde-Smith’s support for President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which cut Medicaid funds, and called her “Cindy High Prices.”

Alternet - Hyde-Smith said her campaign remained confident voters would reelect her after thousands of outstanding affidavit and absentee ballots still needed processing and verification.

WHERE:

BBC News - The Senate race was in Mississippi.

CBS News - Colom’s win flipped a Republican-held seat in the deep-red state of Mississippi.

NBC News - President Trump carried Mississippi by 23 points in 2024.

WHEN:

NBC News - Mississippi last elected a Democrat to the Senate 44 years before Colom’s victory; Colom was born in 1982.

CBS News - Mississippi had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.

CBS News - Democrats were expected to control at least 55 Senate seats in January.

WHY:

CNN - Democratic strategists attributed increased Black voter engagement across the South partly to inflation and Republican efforts to curb Black political power.

AlterNet - Colom said the Evers-home advertisement was intended to recall the sacrifices made to secure voting rights; he said, “We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story.”

CBS News - The race’s competitiveness reflected opposition to the war in Iran and persistent affordability concerns, which CBS News said were creating headwinds for Republicans nationally.

CBS News - Colom campaigned on cost-of-living and health-care issues, arguing Hyde-Smith had not delivered for Mississippi.

NBC News - Colom said he believed Democrats could win Mississippi because of its sizable Black population and rural white voters who might support a Democrat.

HOW:

CNN - The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable held a post-election tele-townhall to help voters correct provisional-ballot problems.

Alternet - Democratic strategist Dan Kanninen said Mississippi’s use of Experian credit data to place people on inactive voter lists could discourage Black voters from casting affidavit ballots.

NBC News - Senate Majority PAC spent nearly $2.1 million on advertising for Colom, according to AdImpact; the Senate Leadership Fund ran a similar-sized ad buy against him.

CBS News - Colom’s lead strengthened after the race was extremely close as vote counting continued.

(UPDATED November 12, 2026 09:58 UTC)

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, flipping Mississippi’s Senate seat after decades. His victory made him the state’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. Black women organizers helped mobilize voters, while Democrats gained at least 55 Senate seats.

(UPDATED November 12, 2026 05:01 UTC)

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, flipping Mississippi’s Senate seat. He becomes the state’s first Black U.S. senator in over 140 years. The victory gives Democrats at least 55 Senate seats, with Alaska’s race undecided.

(UPDATED November 12, 2026 01:13 UTC)

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, flipping Mississippi’s Senate seat. Colom becomes the state’s first Black U.S. senator in over 140 years. His victory gives Democrats at least 55 Senate seats in the next Congress.

(UPDATED November 11, 2026 23:59 UTC)

Democrat Scott Colom defeated Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, flipping Mississippi’s Senate seat after decades. He becomes Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator in more than 140 years. Colom’s victory gives Democrats at least 55 Senate seats, with Alaska’s race undecided.