U.S. Sen.-elect Scott Colom (D-MS) waves during the conclusion of a victory rally at Tougaloo College on November 11, 2026 in Tougaloo, Mississippi. Colom defeated incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) in a close race that took over a week to call. Colom is the first Black senator to be elected in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era. Brandon Bell/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Brandon Bell / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
Democrat Scott Colom wins Mississippi US Senate race in historic midterm upset
Note: AI technology was used to generate this article’s audio.
- Colom, 43, secured 49.2% of the vote compared to Hyde-Smith's 48.7%, winning by fewer than 5,000 ballots out of nearly one million cast.
- The upset lifts Democrats to 55 seats in the 100-member US Senat.
Democrat Scott Colom has won the US Senate election in Mississippi, defeating Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in a razor-thin upset that ends more than four decades of Republican Senate dominance in the state.
The victory makes Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, the first Black person elected to the US Senate from Mississippi in over 140 years.
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CBS vote stated that tallies from the Nov. 4 contest, Colom received 49.2% of the vote to Hyde-Smith’s 48.7%, a margin of fewer than 5,000 votes out of nearly one million counted, while an independent candidate took 2.1%.
Hyde-Smith, 67, who has served in the Senate since 2018, conceded on Wednesday evening in a video statement posted on X, congratulating Colom and wishing him well. "While this was not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," she said.
Thank you, Mississippi. https://t.co/DtNPffutPu
— Cindy Hyde-Smith (@cindyhydesmith) November 11, 2026
Addressing hundreds of cheering supporters at Tougaloo College following days of vote tabulation, Colom attributed the result to grassroots organizing across the state. "They did not believe a moment like this was possible, but I kept the faith," he said. "It's not something that I did y'all. It's something we did. In Mississippi, it's local people that make the difference."
At the Mississippi headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Jackson, board chairman Leon Russell called the outcome a "historic election" driven by Black voter mobilization rather than heavy campaign spending.
The result reverses a Republican Senate winning streak in Mississippi stretching back to 1982 and comes in a state President Donald Trump carried by more than 22 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
Colom's win adds to a broader set of Democratic midterm gains that have handed the party control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Democrats now hold 55 Senate seats, with a closely contested race in Alaska still undecided, after flipping additional Republican-held seats in Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa.
Exit polling suggested that the nationwide shift against Republicans was driven largely by voter dissatisfaction with economic conditions, tariffs implemented under the Trump administration, and the ongoing conflict with Iran.
During the campaign, Colom visited all 82 Mississippi counties and criticized Hyde-Smith's backing of administration tariffs, nicknaming her "Cindy High Prices." Hyde-Smith's campaign, meanwhile, sought to tie Colom to liberal donor George Soros and faced criticism over her limited public campaign schedule.
