JACKSON, Miss. — Senate Republicans have lost reliably red Mississippi.
The Associated Press projected Wednesday that Democrat Scott Colom, a district attorney, has defeated incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., more than a week after Election Day. The call gives Democrats 55 seats in the U.S. Senate to Republicans' 44, with Alaska still undecided, according to Fox News. CBS News and NBC News also projected Colom the winner.
Hyde-Smith conceded in a video posted to X on Wednesday evening. "While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," she said. "I want to congratulate Scott Cologne and wish him well, as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state." A source familiar told Fox News Digital that Hyde-Smith had spoken with Colom and conceded the race.
No Democrat had won a Mississippi Senate seat since 1982. Colom will become the state's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, according to The New York Times and NBC News, taking the seat once held by Hiram Revels, the nation's first Black senator, elected in 1870.
What Happened
The race was deadlocked until the final weeks of October, according to Fox News. President Donald Trump carried Mississippi by 23 percentage points in 2024 and campaigned in the state for Hyde-Smith days before the election. A seven-figure, last-minute ad buy by the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC closely tied to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., was not enough to stop Colom's momentum, Fox News reported.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris stumped for Colom, according to The New York Times.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., took a victory lap before the AP called the race. "We will work hand in hand with Scott to fight for Mississippians' health care, costs, and future in the 120th Congress and look forward to welcoming him to our caucus," they said, according to Fox News.
Colom addressed his coalition during the campaign, telling voters his party had too long written off the state. "But for too long we were also a betrayed cause by the national party because they did not compete in this state," he said, per NBC News.
Why It Matters
The loss is the eighth Republican-held Senate seat Democrats have flipped this year, according to NBC News. Fox News reported that 55 Democrats will hold Senate seats next year, with one race still pending in Alaska, where former Rep. Mary Peltola is in a neck-and-neck contest with Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.
Exit polling cited by NBC News found a majority of Mississippi voters disapproved of Trump's overall job performance, said his policies including tariffs hurt the economy, and opposed U.S. military action in Iran.
The result lands two years after Trump won the state by 23 points — and after he personally campaigned for Hyde-Smith. Republicans now confront a Senate map that has shrunk to 44 seats with Alaska outstanding.
It is not yet known when Colom will be sworn in or how the final Alaska result will reshape the chamber's margins.
Our Take
Let's be clear about what just happened. Mississippi — a state Trump won by 23 points — just sent a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in 44 years. That is not a fluke. That is a message, and the people delivering it are the same voters Republicans have spent two years assuming would never leave.
Hyde-Smith had the president's endorsement. She had a seven-figure lifeline from the Senate Leadership Fund. She had everything the party establishment could throw at a race — and it wasn't enough. Why? Because when voters are angry about prices, and Washington keeps telling them the economy is fine, they stop listening to the people who tell them that.
Some in the GOP will want to blame the usual suspects — the media, the timing, the turnout. But the exit polling cited by NBC News is brutal: a majority of Mississippi voters disapproved of Trump's job performance. A majority said tariffs hurt the economy. A majority opposed military action in Iran. That is not a turnout problem. That is a message problem.
Colom ran as a district attorney and talked about costs and health care. He didn't run as a socialist. He didn't run on defunding anything. He ran on the kitchen-table issues Republicans used to own — and he won in the reddest state in the country.
If Republicans want to hold the Senate in two years, they need to stop assuming deep-red states are safe and start proving they deserve them. Mississippi just proved the price of taking voters for granted — and it wasn't cheap.
