- Colom flipped Forrest County, a Republican stronghold named after the KKK founder, signaling a major political shift.
- He energized Black voters who comprise 35% of Mississippi’s electorate while building coalition support from working-class whites.
- This victory represents historic progress in a state once considered the epicenter of Jim Crow violence and racial oppression.
Mississippians were told to pick another protein, but they decided to pick another senator instead!
In what will likely go down as one of the most historic moments in Mississippi history, Democrat Scott Colom has beaten incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith for the U.S. Senate seat.
CNN confirmed Colom to be the winner of the race, making him the state’s first Democratic Senator in four decades and the first Black senator since Reconstruction.
This is yet another Black wave in the blue tsunami that took over a little over a week ago, when Democrats celebrated strong wins, gaining control of both the House and the Senate, and electing Black governors across the country as well.
Colom’s victory includes the fact that he flipped Forrest County, a Republican stronghold named after the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
From CNN:
Colom campaigned relentlessly as he sought to energize Black voters, who make up roughly 35% of the state’s electorate. He also worked to build a coalition that includes White, working-class Mississippians.
The win comes just a few years after Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination to the federal bench, although the Democrat had the backing of other Republicans, including Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi’s senior senator.
Hyde-Smith became the first female US senator from Mississippi when she was appointed in 2018 to fill a vacancy. She went on to win a special election later that year and reelection in 2020.
The Associated Press is also calling the race for Colom, noting that “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.”
As NewsOne previously reported, by “midday Tuesday, Colom maintained a 2,536-vote advantage over Hyde-Smith in the unofficial tally, according to the Associated Press. But two important deadlines arrived Tuesday afternoon that could affect the outcome: resolving provisional ballots cast because of questions about voters’ eligibility and receiving mail-in absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day.”
Once those votes are accounted for, officials in all 82 Mississippi counties have until the close of business Friday to certify their election results.
And there is plenty riding on those remaining ballots.
The largest number of outstanding votes Tuesday were in Hinds County, a Democratic stronghold surrounding the state capital of Jackson, with another significant batch remaining in neighboring Holmes County, which is even more reliably blue. The geographic distribution of those outstanding votes has continued to favor Colom, the Washington Post reports.
This is a major victory for a Black man in what Mother Jones refers to as a state that was “once the epicenter of Jim Crow.”
More from Mother Jones:
This was the state where Jim Crow was the most violent and repressive. It was where Emmett Till was lynched, Evers was assassinated, and the young civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. There were 581 documented lynchings during the Jim Crow era, more than any other state.
“Just to mention Mississippi, to cross the state line from Alabama and go there, it just created all types of problems in my own mind,” the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis once said. “It seemed like when you just drove over the state line, something happened to the air, to the environment. It was a psychological thing… Alabama is bad; Alabama is hell. But to go to Mississippi at the time was worse than hell.”
Change doesn’t always come quickly or loudly, but it shows up at just the right time.
Scott Colom is just the right man at the right time.
Over here at NewsOne, we are proud of Senator-elect Colom and congratulate him on his well-earned victory.
SEE ALSO:
A Black Man Just Flipped A Mississippi County Named After KKK Founder
Mississippi Election Shows The Power Of Black Voters
Monique Judge
Managing Editor, NewsOne
mjudge@ionedigital.com
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