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Scott Colom is on the verge of a historic upset in Mississippi, where he could become the state's first Democrat elected to the US Senate in more than four decades.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Decision Desk HQ showed Colom, a Black prosecutor and criminal justice reform advocate, holding a razor-thin margin of 1,864 votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith with more than 95% of ballots counted.
Even on a night when Democrats clobbered the GOP up and down the map and won decisively in states as red as Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, very few analysts believed Mississippi—where President Donald Trump won by nearly 23 points in 2024—would be competitive, let alone a nail-biter that dragged into the next day.
But NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki explained Wednesday morning that with thousands of votes left to count in overwhelmingly Democratic Hinds County, “Colom could absolutely win this.”
In a 5-4 decision that now looms large, the US Supreme Court shot down Republican efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that arrive afterward. Those ballots, which can continue arriving until November 10, may ultimately decide the election.
Even if Colom falls short, his strong showing was evidence of what the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, described as "historic voter turnout" in Black communities, in response to Republicans' attack on the Voting Rights Act.
Following the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision earlier this year, several GOP-controlled states, including those in the Deep South, moved to redraw congressional and state legislative districts in ways that voting rights advocates warned would dilute Black voting power.
On the campaign trail, Colom described Callais as "a threat to our democracy" and said Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who proposed legislative maps that would have drawn Black lawmakers out of their districts, was seeking to stop Black voters from "being able to pick leaders they want."
When the court’s conservatives kneecapped the Voting Rights Act, they inspired a fierce backlash among Black voters across the South," explained reporter Jim Saksa in an analysis for Democracy Docket. "Massive Black turnout helped Democrats coast to victory in Georgia and made the Senate races in Mississippi and Louisiana the tightest seen in decades."
Voter turnout in Mississippi is on pace to be about 40% higher than in the last midterm election in 2022. In majority-Black Hinds County, which contains Jackson, unofficial results showed nearly 76,500 votes for the two leading US Senate candidates alone, about 44% more than the total number of ballots cast four years ago.
"The story of this election is not just about who won," said Dominik Whitehead, chief of field for the NAACP. "It's about the Black wave of voters who understood what was at stake and made their voices heard."
Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom of Mississippi stands outside the home of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, in a video posted on November 1, 2026. (Screenshot from a video by Scott Colom)
Colom didn’t have to water down his platform much to achieve tremendous gains, even in a deep-red state. As political strategist Paul Hilder explained, he “ran on a ‘commonsense’ economic populist platform aimed at daily life: gas, groceries, healthcare, and closing hospitals, plus Medicaid expansion.”
In the nation’s poorest state, where nearly 1 in 5 residents rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, this message was potent. It was especially effective against Hyde-Smith, who has comfortably won her previous elections and was relentlessly criticized for dismissing voters’ concerns about high prices.
For example, in DeSoto County, which Trump carried by 24 points in 2024, Colom led Hyde-Smith by more than six points in early returns.
"[Colom] won many switchers, and the Republican vote collapsed," Hilder said. "Swing voters are more volatile than ever, especially when they’re economically hard-pressed. They respond to common sense, and they’ve decided Trump and the Republicans are not on their side."
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Sen. John C. Stennis, a conservative segregationist, won his seventh term in 1982. And although it has the highest proportion of Black residents of any US state, Mississippi has not sent a Black senator to Washington since Reconstruction, when Republican Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery, was elected by the state Legislature.
Colom told NPR last week he’s always believed change was possible and that it has failed to materialize only because of neglect by national Democrats, who have long written the state off as unwinnable.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause," he said. "We've been a betrayed cause."
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Scott Colom is on the verge of a historic upset in Mississippi, where he could become the state's first Democrat elected to the US Senate in more than four decades.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Decision Desk HQ showed Colom, a Black prosecutor and criminal justice reform advocate, holding a razor-thin margin of 1,864 votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith with more than 95% of ballots counted.
Even on a night when Democrats clobbered the GOP up and down the map and won decisively in states as red as Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, very few analysts believed Mississippi—where President Donald Trump won by nearly 23 points in 2024—would be competitive, let alone a nail-biter that dragged into the next day.
But NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki explained Wednesday morning that with thousands of votes left to count in overwhelmingly Democratic Hinds County, “Colom could absolutely win this.”
In a 5-4 decision that now looms large, the US Supreme Court shot down Republican efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that arrive afterward. Those ballots, which can continue arriving until November 10, may ultimately decide the election.
Even if Colom falls short, his strong showing was evidence of what the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, described as "historic voter turnout" in Black communities, in response to Republicans' attack on the Voting Rights Act.
Following the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision earlier this year, several GOP-controlled states, including those in the Deep South, moved to redraw congressional and state legislative districts in ways that voting rights advocates warned would dilute Black voting power.
On the campaign trail, Colom described Callais as "a threat to our democracy" and said Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who proposed legislative maps that would have drawn Black lawmakers out of their districts, was seeking to stop Black voters from "being able to pick leaders they want."
When the court’s conservatives kneecapped the Voting Rights Act, they inspired a fierce backlash among Black voters across the South," explained reporter Jim Saksa in an analysis for Democracy Docket. "Massive Black turnout helped Democrats coast to victory in Georgia and made the Senate races in Mississippi and Louisiana the tightest seen in decades."
Voter turnout in Mississippi is on pace to be about 40% higher than in the last midterm election in 2022. In majority-Black Hinds County, which contains Jackson, unofficial results showed nearly 76,500 votes for the two leading US Senate candidates alone, about 44% more than the total number of ballots cast four years ago.
"The story of this election is not just about who won," said Dominik Whitehead, chief of field for the NAACP. "It's about the Black wave of voters who understood what was at stake and made their voices heard."
Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom of Mississippi stands outside the home of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, in a video posted on November 1, 2026. (Screenshot from a video by Scott Colom)
Colom didn’t have to water down his platform much to achieve tremendous gains, even in a deep-red state. As political strategist Paul Hilder explained, he “ran on a ‘commonsense’ economic populist platform aimed at daily life: gas, groceries, healthcare, and closing hospitals, plus Medicaid expansion.”
In the nation’s poorest state, where nearly 1 in 5 residents rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, this message was potent. It was especially effective against Hyde-Smith, who has comfortably won her previous elections and was relentlessly criticized for dismissing voters’ concerns about high prices.
For example, in DeSoto County, which Trump carried by 24 points in 2024, Colom led Hyde-Smith by more than six points in early returns.
"[Colom] won many switchers, and the Republican vote collapsed," Hilder said. "Swing voters are more volatile than ever, especially when they’re economically hard-pressed. They respond to common sense, and they’ve decided Trump and the Republicans are not on their side."
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Sen. John C. Stennis, a conservative segregationist, won his seventh term in 1982. And although it has the highest proportion of Black residents of any US state, Mississippi has not sent a Black senator to Washington since Reconstruction, when Republican Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery, was elected by the state Legislature.
Colom told NPR last week he’s always believed change was possible and that it has failed to materialize only because of neglect by national Democrats, who have long written the state off as unwinnable.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause," he said. "We've been a betrayed cause."
Scott Colom is on the verge of a historic upset in Mississippi, where he could become the state's first Democrat elected to the US Senate in more than four decades.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Decision Desk HQ showed Colom, a Black prosecutor and criminal justice reform advocate, holding a razor-thin margin of 1,864 votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith with more than 95% of ballots counted.
Even on a night when Democrats clobbered the GOP up and down the map and won decisively in states as red as Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, very few analysts believed Mississippi—where President Donald Trump won by nearly 23 points in 2024—would be competitive, let alone a nail-biter that dragged into the next day.
But NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki explained Wednesday morning that with thousands of votes left to count in overwhelmingly Democratic Hinds County, “Colom could absolutely win this.”
In a 5-4 decision that now looms large, the US Supreme Court shot down Republican efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that arrive afterward. Those ballots, which can continue arriving until November 10, may ultimately decide the election.
Even if Colom falls short, his strong showing was evidence of what the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, described as "historic voter turnout" in Black communities, in response to Republicans' attack on the Voting Rights Act.
Following the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision earlier this year, several GOP-controlled states, including those in the Deep South, moved to redraw congressional and state legislative districts in ways that voting rights advocates warned would dilute Black voting power.
On the campaign trail, Colom described Callais as "a threat to our democracy" and said Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who proposed legislative maps that would have drawn Black lawmakers out of their districts, was seeking to stop Black voters from "being able to pick leaders they want."
When the court’s conservatives kneecapped the Voting Rights Act, they inspired a fierce backlash among Black voters across the South," explained reporter Jim Saksa in an analysis for Democracy Docket. "Massive Black turnout helped Democrats coast to victory in Georgia and made the Senate races in Mississippi and Louisiana the tightest seen in decades."
Voter turnout in Mississippi is on pace to be about 40% higher than in the last midterm election in 2022. In majority-Black Hinds County, which contains Jackson, unofficial results showed nearly 76,500 votes for the two leading US Senate candidates alone, about 44% more than the total number of ballots cast four years ago.
"The story of this election is not just about who won," said Dominik Whitehead, chief of field for the NAACP. "It's about the Black wave of voters who understood what was at stake and made their voices heard."
Democratic US Senate candidate Scott Colom of Mississippi stands outside the home of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, in a video posted on November 1, 2026. (Screenshot from a video by Scott Colom)
Colom didn’t have to water down his platform much to achieve tremendous gains, even in a deep-red state. As political strategist Paul Hilder explained, he “ran on a ‘commonsense’ economic populist platform aimed at daily life: gas, groceries, healthcare, and closing hospitals, plus Medicaid expansion.”
In the nation’s poorest state, where nearly 1 in 5 residents rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, this message was potent. It was especially effective against Hyde-Smith, who has comfortably won her previous elections and was relentlessly criticized for dismissing voters’ concerns about high prices.
For example, in DeSoto County, which Trump carried by 24 points in 2024, Colom led Hyde-Smith by more than six points in early returns.
"[Colom] won many switchers, and the Republican vote collapsed," Hilder said. "Swing voters are more volatile than ever, especially when they’re economically hard-pressed. They respond to common sense, and they’ve decided Trump and the Republicans are not on their side."
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Sen. John C. Stennis, a conservative segregationist, won his seventh term in 1982. And although it has the highest proportion of Black residents of any US state, Mississippi has not sent a Black senator to Washington since Reconstruction, when Republican Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery, was elected by the state Legislature.
Colom told NPR last week he’s always believed change was possible and that it has failed to materialize only because of neglect by national Democrats, who have long written the state off as unwinnable.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause," he said. "We've been a betrayed cause."