Colom’s win came down to a slow count of a few thousand ballots.

LatestHere’s the latest.The Democratic candidate Scott Colom narrowly defeated Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, to become the first Black senator elected from Mississippi since Reconstruction, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.It is a profound moment for both Mississippi and the Democratic Party in the South: Mr. Colom, a district attorney, will take the seat once held by Hiram Revels, the nation’s first Black senator, who was elected in 1870. No Democrat has won a Senate seat in the state since 1982.Democrats won sweeping victories in this year’s midterms, taking back control of the House and Senate as they capitalized on anger with high prices and President Trump’s agenda. The close contest in Mississippi shows how deep into Republican terrain Democrats extended their reach.Mr. Colom’s upset victory in a state until recently seen as a lock for conservatives came after more than a week of painstaking ballot counting. It adds to Democrats’ sweeping wins across the country in this year’s midterms, giving the party 55 seats in the upper chamber with one race still undecided.His campaign was powered by a diverse coalition that included Black voters angered by policies they felt targeted their communities and undermined their voting power; white voters frustrated with high prices and the Trump administration’s agenda; and some Republicans dissatisfied with Ms. Hyde-Smith’s loyalty to the president and his policies.For much of the year, Ms. Hyde-Smith was heavily favored to win a second term. President Trump had carried Mississippi by 23 percentage points in 2024, and Republicans had long dominated statewide elections.The contest attracted national attention in its final stretch. Mr. Trump campaigned for Ms. Hyde-Smith in the state days before the election, while former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris stumped for Mr. Colom.As Democrats racked up win after win, taking back control of the House and Senate in the Nov. 3 election, the contest in Mississippi remained unsettled for days as lawyers from both parties scrutinized the counting of ballots.Here’s what else to know:Campaigning on costs: A viral campaign ad helped draw attention to the race in October, after Ms. Hyde-Smith told a local television anchor that voters “have so many proteins to choose from” during a discussion of high beef prices. In the ad, a burger-flipping man tells the camera, “Pick another protein? I’d rather pick another senator instead.”Making history: Black residents make up 37 percent of Mississippi’s population — the highest proportion of any state — but it had not elected a Black senator in more than 150 years. The last Democrat to win a Senate race in the state was John C. Stennis, a segregationist who won re-election in 1982.In post on social media, Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, Ala., who is also a Black Democrat, congratulated Mr. Colom. “They said the South will rise again,” he wrote, “but they never said which South.”Representative Justis Gibbs, a Democratic state lawmaker, was at his Jackson law office when the race was called for Colom, who will become the first Black senator from Mississippi in nearly 150 years. Everyone stopped working and screamed for joy, he said.“Scott Colom’s victory marks a true turning point for Mississippi,” said Gibbs, who is also Black. “Voters showed up and showed out! His authenticity on the campaign trail and remarkable ability to connect with Mississippians in both rural and urban communities have injected new energy and momentum into the Mississippi Democratic Party.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTBefore this week, no Democrat had won Mississippi’s Senate race since 1982, when Senator John C. Stennis won a seventh term. As a staunch segregationist, Stennis had been a member of an earlier iteration of the Democratic Party. He renounced those views toward the end of his career, in the early 1980s.Scott Colom is currently leading Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 4,669 votes with around 99% of ballots counted, according to The Associated Press. His margin could change slightly, but the call means that The A.P. does not see a path to victory for Hyde-Smith.With the election of Colom, there will now be seven Black senators next year, the highest number in history. In addition to Colom, Julianna Stratton, the senator-elect from Illinois, will join Senators Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Tim Scott and Raphael Warnock.U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, until today Mississippi’s sole Black congressman, congratulated Colom in a statement, saying that his campaign “brought together Mississippians from every walk of life — young and old, black and white, rural and urban — in a way I have never witnessed in more than 50 years of public service.”ImageCredit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSenator Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California, connected Colom’s win to voting rights. “Just a few thousand votes made the difference,” the former California secretary of state wrote in a post on X. “Never let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t matter. That’s why they keep trying to go after our right to vote. When the people turn out, justice wins.”Wilbur Colom, Scott Colom’s father, told The New York Times Wednesday that Hyde-Smith had gotten in touch with Colom’s team to concede the race.Colom’s win came down to a slow count of a few thousand ballots.ImageElection workers process absentee ballots in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York TimesDemocrats who won seats in the Senate after the midterm elections posed for a group photo at the U.S. Capitol earlier this week. But Scott Colom was still in Mississippi, telling his supporters to hold on tight in a close Senate race that would be decided by a few thousand votes.Mr. Colom, a Democrat, may be late to the party in Washington, but he finally made it. A decisive tranche of affidavit and absentee-by-mail ballots tallied on Wednesday pushed Mr. Colom to victory as the first Black senator elected by Mississippi since the Reconstruction era.The counting took time. Tuesday was the last day that mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day could arrive. By then, Mr. Colom held a narrow lead over the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, but it was not much larger than the roughly 2,500 absentee-by-mail ballots that still needed to be tallied.There was also an unknown number of affidavit ballots left to be counted, and they were likely to play an outsized role in what had become an extremely close election. Those ballots had been cast provisionally by Mississippians who believed they were registered voters but who were not listed at their polling places.Election officials had to check to see if those voters had been missed in poll books, or if they had later turned up at a local clerk’s office with proper identification to “cure” their ballots. The deadline to cure affidavit ballots was also on Tuesday.The affidavit ballots are required to be manually processed by local officials, part of a slow count that had captured national attention since the Nov. 3 election.The process to validate affidavit ballots had confused some younger voters, leading to efforts by organizers in recent days to get students on college campuses to check the status of their votes. Young voters were a key component of Mr. Colom’s coalition.Unlike most states, Mississippi law does not allow for a recount in statewide races. But Republicans have closely monitored the count, with their lawyers writing to election commissioners that there should be an “immediate separation, secure custody, and preservation of all affidavit ballots.” Mr. Colom’s lawyers objected to that request in their own letter.Mike Hurst, the chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, had previously said lawyers supporting Ms. Hyde-Smith’s campaign “will be ready, if necessary, to avail ourselves of every legal option at our disposal, if there is evidence that the law has been violated.”Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSenator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign arm, congratulated Senator-elect Scott Colom for breaking the party’s more than 40-year drought in Mississippi Senate races on Wednesday evening.“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,” Schumer and Gillibrand, both of New York, said in a joint statement.Here are five things to know about Scott Colom, Mississippi’s next senator.ImageScott Colom at an event in Jackson, Miss., last week.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York TimesIn perhaps the most stunning upset of the midterm elections, Scott Colom, a Democrat from Mississippi, narrowly edged out Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican, according to The Associated Press. The victory came after a vote count that extended more than a week after the Nov. 3 election.Mr. Colom will become the first Black senator from Mississippi elected since Reconstruction, after Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery, went to Washington more than 150 years ago.Here are five things to know about Mr. Colom.1. He is a prosecutor with a family history in politics.Mr. Colom, 43, is a district attorney from Columbus, Miss., a city of roughly 23,000 people near the border with Alabama. He won that office by unseating a nearly 30-year incumbent in 2015, and has been re-elected twice since then.Mr. Colom’s mother was a judge, and his father, Wilbur Colom, is an attorney who served on Ronald Reagan’s transition team and ran as a Republican for state treasurer in 1987. Mr. Colom has two daughters with his wife and attends a Baptist church, according to his campaign website.2. His election breaks a barrier that has stood for well over a century.Mr. Colom is the first Black senator elected in more than 150 years from Mississippi, where Black residents make up 37 percent of the population — the highest proportion of any state. He is also the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the state since 1982, the year that John C. Stennis, a segregationist Democrat, ran for the last time.Mr. Colom will take the seat once held by Hiram Revels, the nation’s first Black senator, who was elected in the Reconstruction era. The senator-elect did it by winning in a state that President Trump carried by nearly 23 points just two years ago.3. He campaigned on high costs — and went viral for it.Mr. Colom’s underdog bid attracted little national attention until October, when one of his campaign ads went viral. The video blasted Ms. Hyde-Smith for saying that voters “have so many proteins to choose from” in response to a local television anchor’s comment on the rising price of beef.“Pick another protein?” a man asks in the ad as he flips a burger. “I’d rather pick another senator instead.”The ad helped Mr. Colom inject energy into his campaign at a crucial moment. The main super PAC for Democratic Senate candidates spent $1.2 million on advertising for him shortly after the advertisement first ran, and added another $1 million later in the race.4. He almost became a federal judge, but Hyde-Smith blocked him.Ms. Hyde-Smith was defeated by a man who, if not for her, would likely have been on the bench rather than on the campaign trail.Three years ago, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. nominated Mr. Colom to a federal district court in Mississippi, and the state’s senior senator, Roger Wicker, a Republican, supported the move. But Ms. Hyde-Smith killed the nomination, objecting to Mr. Colom’s support for transgender rights and past spending on his behalf by a political action committee funded by George Soros, a billionaire donor to progressive causes.5. He sought bipartisan appeal.Mr. Colom reached out to both Republicans and Democrats with promises that he would work across the aisle. He also spoke about high costs, his opposition to the Iran war, and his work prosecuting violent criminals.On the campaign trail, he emphasized direct communication with voters. He held a series of “Where’s Cindy?” town halls to draw attention to his Republican opponent’s low profile in the state, parked a food truck outside small-town city halls and worked the line of attendees at a Trump rally in the final days before the election.“I knew we could win,” Mr. Colom said at a news conference on Nov. 4. “I knew that there were voters out there who loved our state more than they loved a political party.”Campbell Robertson and Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.In a major upset, Scott Colom, a Democrat, wins a Senate seat in Mississippi.ImageScott Colom, a Democrat and prosecutor, in Jackson, Miss., on Friday.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York TimesThe last Black man to represent Mississippi in the Senate was born into slavery and left office in 1881.More than a century later, on Wednesday, Scott Colom, a Democrat, defeated Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, according to The Associated Press, delivering a remarkable upset and becoming the first Black person to be elected to the Senate in his state since the Reconstruction era.Mr. Colom’s victory, which came by a slim margin after more than a week of ballot tallying following the Nov. 3 election, puts an exclamation point on the sweeping Democratic victories across the country during this year’s midterms. For Republicans, the outcome was a jarring rebuke in a reliably conservative stronghold.Mr. Colom’s victory was powered by a diverse coalition that included Black voters angered by policies that targeted their communities and their voting power; white voters frustrated with high prices and the Trump administration’s agenda; and some Republicans dissatisfied by Ms. Hyde-Smith’s loyalty to the president and his policies.For much of this year, Ms. Hyde-Smith had been heavily favored to defeat Mr. Colom, a district attorney, and win a second term. President Trump carried Mississippi by 23 percentage points in 2024, and Republicans have long dominated statewide elections.But the race appeared to tighten toward the end. Mr. Colom, who barreled across the state to homecoming celebrations, city halls and college campuses, worked to introduce himself and capitalize on frustration with Mr. Trump and his Republican allies.The contest attracted national attention in its final stretch. Mr. Trump campaigned for Ms. Hyde-Smith in the state days before the election, while former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris stumped for Mr. Colom.As Democrats racked up win after win, taking back control of the House and Senate in the Nov. 3 election, the contest in Mississippi remained unsettled. Mr. Colom held a razor-thin lead as lawyers from both parties scrutinized the counting of mail votes as well as affidavit ballots, which are similar to provisional ballots in other states, cast by voters who were listed as inactive or did not bring proper identification.As the cohort of newly elected senators headed to Washington for orientation, Mr. Colom waited in Mississippi for the results. It was fitting, he said, to spend time in the state as his supporters grew hopeful that he would emerge the winner.During the campaign, Mr. Colom emphasized health care and lowering costs, among other issues. He did not often dwell on the historic implications of his candidacy.Mississippi was the first state to send a Black person to Congress, Hiram Revels, who joined the Senate in 1870. He was followed by Blanche Bruce in 1875, who was born in slavery in 1841. Mr. Bruce was replaced by a white former Confederate soldier who disavowed the ideals of racial equality and ushered in segregationist policies.Mr. Colom will be sworn into office in January, 146 years after Mr. Bruce left office. And because both Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce were chosen by state lawmakers, Mr. Colom is the first Black senator in the state’s history to be chosen with the people’s votes.Mr. Colom’s victory came three years after Ms. Hyde-Smith denied him a chance at a seat on the federal judicial bench by blocking his nomination by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.He announced his campaign to challenge her in September 2025, criticizing her reluctance to hold public town halls, as well as her unwavering support for Mr. Trump.His record as a prosecutor in northern Mississippi helped insulate him from attacks that he was too liberal for the state. Mr. Colom also hammered Ms. Hyde-Smith on her votes to cut health care and nutritional benefits, a potent message in one of the nation’s poorest states. And he created a viral campaign ad around her suggestion that voters contending with rising beef prices should “pick another protein,” encouraging Mississippi to “pick another senator instead.”After the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he tapped into backlash among Black voters angered by attempts to dilute their voting power.In the final weeks of the campaign, some Democratic-aligned groups injected money into the race, hoping to increase turnout. Even then, some were skeptical that a Democrat could break through in Mississippi.