Make another mark in the “historic” column for this year’s midterm elections: Democrat Scott Colom has officially been declared the winner of the race to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate.
With 99 percent of the vote counted, Colom has edged out Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by a margin of 49.19 percent to 48.71 percent. This makes Colom the first Black person to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Hyde-Smith officially conceded defeat in a two-minute speech posted online earlier this evening and pledged to “respect the decision of Mississippi voters.”
Colom has served at the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th judicial dustrict since Jan. 26. In 2023, after then-President Joe Biden had nominated Colom to the bench of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Hyde-Smith blocked that nomination by refusing to return the home-state “blue slip,” a tradition that allows the senator of a judicial nominee’s home state to derail the nomination by refusing to return a literally blue slip of paper to the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Hyde-Smith said at the time that she had blocked Colom’s nomination because, in 2021, he had signed a letter opposing efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming healthcare, among other things.
Colom’s win becoming official gives Democrats a 55-44 majority over Republicans, and makes the still undecided Senate race between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Dan S. Sullivan the only still undecided Senate contest in the 2026 midterms. As of 7:34 p.m. central time tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 11), with 84 percent of the vote reported, Peltola held a 4,250-vote lead over Dan S. Sullivan, putting her ahead 48.95 percent to 47.20 percent
Gerald L. Heikes, another Republican on the ticket, had received 5,318 vote (2.19 percent), and Independent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had received 4,027 votes (1.66 percent)