Mississippi elects Democrat Scott Colom as state's first Black US senator since Reconstruction
JACKSON, Miss. — Democratic nominee Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith 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, and it will echo through the country as well. 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. The Associated Press called the contest Wednesday in Colom's favor after local elections 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, and the winner then was a staunch segregationist. Colom, a 43 year-old local prosecutor, capitalized on the state’s large Black population,
