No Black Mississippian has sat in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. Scott Colom, a district attorney in the state’s northeast, is asking voters to end that on Nov. 3, and national Democrats have started to act as if he could.
Black residents make up about 37% of Mississippi’s 2.95 million people and roughly a third of a typical general-election electorate, a larger share than in any other state. More than 90% of them vote Democratic, but they turn out at lower rates than white voters, and white voters back Republicans by about 4 to 1. Colom’s route to victory, as The Associated Press laid it out, runs through higher Black turnout and about 25% of the white vote, up from the 20% or so Democrats usually get.
Senate Majority PAC, the Democrats’ top Senate campaign group, began a $1.2 million television campaign for Colom on Oct. 22. Its spokesperson said “it is clear Colom is running a competitive race that has put Hyde-Smith on her heels.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris rallied for him in Columbus on Thursday, Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has campaigned with him, and Barack Obama recorded an ad the campaign is running statewide on radio and digital.
The odds remain long. Trump carried Mississippi by 23 points in 2024, and the state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982. Democrats point out that Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith ran 6 points behind Trump in 2020, when she won by 10.
This is also a personal contest. Three years ago Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination to a federal judgeship, using the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition that lets a home-state senator veto a district court pick. Mississippi’s other senator, Roger Wicker, and former Republican governors Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant had backed Colom. Hyde-Smith cited the support he received from donor George Soros in his district attorney campaign and a 2021 letter he signed condemning efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming health care.
Colom, a seventh-generation Mississippian, won his office in 2015 by beating a 30-year incumbent. He has kept his message on prices rather than race. “I’m going to fight the corruption that we’re seeing in D.C. that’s making everything less affordable,” he has said, pointing to tariffs, health care access and inflation.
Hyde-Smith’s campaign calls him a puppet of coastal progressives and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “No one believes in Scott Colom except for Scott Colom,” it has said.
Money is a constraint. As of June, Hyde-Smith had raised $3.8 million and had $2.5 million left, while Colom had raised $2.8 million and had $850,000 on hand. Mississippi’s cheap media markets mean outside spending can go a long way.
Republicans hold the Senate 53 to 47. Mississippi votes Nov. 3.
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