Colom’s win fuels Democratic hopes for next year’s race for governor.

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 win sent a wave of elation through the ranks of Mississippi Democrats and held a special significance for Black elected leaders. State Representative Justis Gibbs, who is Black, described how his law office in Jackson erupted in screams of joy. “Scott Colom’s victory marks a true turning point for Mississippi,” Mr. Gibbs said.Mr. Colom’s victory, in a state until recently seen as a lock for conservatives, followed 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.Here’s what else to know:Concession speech: Senator Hyde-Smith conceded on Wednesday evening. “While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” she said in a video posted on social media. Read more ›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.Scott Colom has arrived on campus and just stepped into the chapel on the Tougaloo campus, to cheers and applause. Michael GoldbergPolitics reporter for Mississippi Today, reporting from Jackson.Amid exuberant celebrations by Democrats, Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, has offered his congratulations to Colom in a statement on social media. Congratulations to Senator-Elect @scott_colom. I hope to collaborate as we continue our very important work to support Mississippi families, grow jobs and wages for our people, and improve educational outcomes for our kids!— Governor Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) November 12, 2026 AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMississippi Democrats built a coalition to elect a Black senator for the first time since Reconstruction.ImageScott Colom defeated the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, by a small margin in the midterm elections.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York TimesScott Colom is set to become the first Black senator from Mississippi in more than 145 years thanks to an unparalleled coalition of hundreds of thousands of Black voters, white voters, enthusiastic college students, angry suburbanites and discontented small-town conservatives.The circumstances behind Mr. Colom’s electoral performance may be a combination of hard work and luck, a skilled candidate running a sharp campaign at just the right time. But history hangs heavily over events in Mississippi, and the significance is profound.Mr. Colom will take the seat once held by Hiram Revels, the nation’s first Black senator, who was elected in 1870, the middle of the Reconstruction era. The last Black senator from Mississippi, Blanche K. Bruce, served from 1875 to 1881, as Reconstruction was in its final days, raising alarms about the violence faced by Black voters but expressing his confidence “in the endurance, capacity and destiny of my people.”This year’s huge Black turnout in the state was in part a reaction to efforts in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South to redraw district lines that would carve up majority-Black seats in Congress and in state legislatures.Among Mr. Colom’s supporters, the prevailing sentiment is that a Black Democrat’s victory in the state was simply a matter of time. What seems so astounding to outsiders is seen by many here as a math problem that has finally been solved.Students are welcoming people to Tougaloo College, steps from the historic chapel where civil rights leaders spoke, with a dance tunnel.Colom’s win fuels Democratic hopes for next year’s race for governor.ImageGov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, is term-limited and cannot seek re-election next year.Credit...Ayrton Breckenridge/Clarion Ledger, via Imagn ImagesThe outcome of the Senate race in Mississippi is finally settled. But even before Scott Colom’s long-shot Democratic victory, voters, officials and politicians were already starting to look ahead to next year.Mr. Colom’s win — driven by the diverse coalition he assembled of Black voters, white Democrats and disenchanted conservatives — has raised questions about how competitive next year’s race might be to replace Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican who cannot seek another term under state law.Two Democratic candidates have already announced plans to run, alongside an already crowded Republican field. Some Democrats have speculated that Brandon Presley, the second cousin of Elvis Presley who fell short in the 2023 race against Mr. Reeves, could run again and capitalize on the party’s enthusiasm in the aftermath of Mr. Colom’s win. (Asked directly on Friday, Mr. Presley did not answer.)Shad White, the conservative state auditor, announced his campaign for governor this week, joining Attorney General Lynn Fitch and two other Republicans who had already announced.The Senate race could reverberate in other ways.Michael Watson, the Republican secretary of state who oversees elections, is running for lieutenant governor, but frustrations over the prolonged counting of ballots this year and the number of voters who found themselves listed as inactive could complicate his political ambitions.The uptick in turnout from Black voters in the South, as well as the overwhelming Republican losses across the country this month, could also affect political calculations around whether to change Mississippi’s district lines in both the State Legislature and Congress.After the Supreme Court ruling this year that weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, some Mississippi Republicans pushed for new lines to be drawn that would give them an advantage — and most likely undercut the power of Black voters in choosing state and federal representatives alike.Before the election, lawmakers held a series of public hearings to debate the possibility of new district lines. Some organizers and voters said the prospect of mid-decade redistricting tied to the Voting Rights Act was yet another motivating factor for Black voters to go to the polls and support Democrats this year.Campbell Robertson contributed reporting.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOutside the historic chapel at Tougaloo College, it’s standing room only — all seats have been taken as people from across the city come to celebrate Scott Colom’s win. In recent days, students and Black leaders have gathered here for community and to receive updates about the lengthy effort to count votes. Tougaloo College is a private, historically Black college just outside Jackson. It was known as a haven for civil rights organizers during the movement. The civil-rights leaders including Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar Evers spoke at its chapel. The man at the center of Scott Colom’s protein ad never expected to become famous. ImageRuss Hudson’s role in an online ad mocking Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican of Mississippi, went viral in the closing days of the campaign. Credit...Scott Colom for SenateRuss Hudson was not supposed to be in Scott Colom’s protein ad.Mr. Hudson, 35, had known the district attorney for about a decade before Mr. Colom became the Democratic candidate for Senate in Mississippi. But it was Mr. Hudson’s father who was initially cast in the campaign ad mocking a suggestion from Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, that Mississippi residents pick another type of protein to avoid rising beef prices.When the elder Mr. Hudson balked at a script that would require him to utter profanity on camera, his son volunteered. In a short-sleeved button down shirt, he stood at a grill in the backyard of Mr. Colom’s parent’s house and tossed his head back to deliver a drawling, deadpan rebuke of Ms. Hyde-Smith.“Shee-it,” Mr. Hudson says in the spot, rendering the off-color word with a distinct southern twang. “I’d rather pick another senator, instead.”The lines, he said, felt natural. He left thinking maybe a couple thousand people would see it.“I just did it like a Mississippian would,” Mr. Hudson said in an interview.Now, Mr. Hudson, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, has found himself as the unlikely face of one of the most potent campaign advertisements of the 2026 midterm cycle. The ad, released in the final weeks of the election season, became a defining feature of Mr. Colom’s campaign and his surge to a stunning upset.“I never expected it to do what it did,” Mr. Hudson said.He even downloaded TikTok to keep up with all the commentary his friends were sending him about the ad. Someone made him a “pick another protein” shirt with his face on it, along with the other two women in the ad.And he keeps fielding requests to, well, say it again.“They make me throw my head back with it, too,” he said.Mr. Hudson, who said he has been mocked for his Southern twang outside of the state, had not been heavily involved in politics. As a disabled veteran on a fixed income and father to an infant, he was drawn to Mr. Colom’s pledges to focus on high costs and protecting benefits for veterans, as well as the personal connection. The ad, he figured, was his contribution to the campaign.“A lot of people don’t know much about Mississippi,” he said. “And look at us now. We’re worldwide.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe mood at Tougaloo College, a historically Black college that had served as a safe haven for civil rights leaders and activists, was exuberant. People were dancing to music, embracing and declaring, “Thank the Lord, we did it.”ImageCredit...Ellen Schmidt/Associated PressMichael GoldbergPolitics reporter for Mississippi Today, reporting from Jackson.Terry Rogers II, 21, a senior studying political science at the historically Black Tougaloo College, spent Tuesday driving students in a college van between government offices to check on their ballots as the race remained uncalled. A day later, he was scrolling CNN when he saw the network called the race for Colom. He and a friend took a moment to cry.“This is what we’ve been praying for, for years, for generations,” Rogers said. “This makes me want to continue to be a Mississippian. This makes me love my state even more than I already did.”Many college-educated residents of Mississippi have fled the state over the years to seek jobs and more progressive environments in other states. Rogers said Colom’s triumph could help improve the state’s national image.As Rogers spoke to The New York Times, a fellow student came by and shouted at him: “He won! You see that? You see that?”Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Scott Colom’s win in the Mississippi Senate race proves that Southern Democrats are resurging.“For too long, Southern Democrats have been overlooked, left out, and even looked down upon — but we are on the rise,” he wrote in a post on X.In another win for the American people, Scott Colom has made history as the first Black U.S. senator representing Mississippi since Reconstruction. For too long, Southern Democrats have been overlooked, left out, and even looked down upon — but we are on the rise.— Andy Beshear (@AndyBeshearKY) November 11, 2026 Hyde-Smith blocked Scott Colom’s path to becoming a judge. Now he’s replacing her.ImageSenator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi during a committee hearing at the Capitol last year.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesWhen it comes to lifetime judicial appointments, the Senate maintains a century-old tradition: The two home-state senators get virtual veto power, regardless of party.Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, used that authority in 2023 to single-handedly block Scott Colom, a district attorney, from consideration for a U.S. District Court vacancy in the state when the Biden administration nominated him.Now, Mr. Colom, a Democrat, has defeated Ms. Hyde-Smith and will take her Senate seat in January.Given the stability and authority of a lifetime appointment to the federal bench, Mr. Colom would not have sought the Senate seat had he been confirmed, he said. But he also stressed that his motivation for running was not a matter of retribution, but a deeper frustration with what he felt was a lack of attention to the state.For Democrats and Mr. Colom’s allies, who were angered by Ms. Hyde-Smith’s rejection, there was some satisfaction in the election outcome on Wednesday.“Scott may have wanted to be a judge, but God saw fit for him to be someone who appoints judges,” said Jabari O. Edwards, a longtime friend of Mr. Colom’s.Mr. Colom, who defeated a three-decade incumbent to become district attorney, had labored to secure bipartisan support for the judicial nomination. He had the backing of Roger Wicker, the other Republican senator from the state; Representative Bennie Thompson, the powerful, long-serving Black Democrat; and two former Republican governors, Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant.Ms. Hyde-Smith was unmoved.“I simply cannot support his nomination to serve on the federal bench in Mississippi for a lifetime,” Ms. Hyde-Smith said in a statement in 2023.Carl Hulse contributed reporting.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTWhen President Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith was among a handful of senators who backed him up, voting to reject the results in Pennsylvania and Arizona in the early hours of Jan. 7, after Congress had reconvened in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol the day before. Six years later, in her own election, she is conceding to a narrow loss.ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesHyde-Smith concedes to Colom: ‘I respect the decision of Mississippi voters.’ImageSenator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, at the Capitol on Tuesday.Credit...Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersSenator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, conceded to Scott Colom, a Democrat, in a video posted to social media on Wednesday evening.“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Ms. Hyde-Smith said in the video. “I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”Ms. Hyde-Smith said that her campaign “worked tirelessly to ensure every legally cast vote was counted, and that the people of Mississippi received a fair and transparent election.”Mr. Colom defeated Ms. Hyde-Smith by a narrow margin, according to The Associated Press. He will become the first Black senator elected from Mississippi since Reconstruction.Mr. Colom’s win means Democrats will hold at least 55 Senate seats at the start of the next Congress. The contest in Alaska, in which the Democrat Mary Peltola has a narrow lead, is the last remaining Senate race in which a winner has not been declared.Ms. Hyde-Smith, the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress, was first appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy in April 2018. She had previously served as Mississippi’s commissioner of agriculture from 2012 to 2018.The Republican senator also spent more than a decade in the Mississippi State Senate, starting as a conservative Democrat in 2000 and converting to the Republican Party in 2010.There has been a lot of commentary after last week’s results about whether big donors can actually swing races. Sometimes, they can. Consider Steve Pajcic, a surprise Democratic donor who emerged in mid-October to spend at least $7 million to back four red-state Democratic Senate candidates. Those races were all long shots then. But with Colom’s victory tonight, three of them have now won. The fourth, Angie Nixon in Florida, came awfully close. That’s an enviable track record.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTColom’s victory pads the Democrats’ majority in the Senate.ImageScott Colom’s win brings the Senate Democratic majority to at least 55 seats.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesScott Colom’s victory in Mississippi adds to the Senate Democratic majority and gives the chamber a new Black voice from the rural South.Mr. Colom’s win over the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, brings the Senate Democratic majority to at least 55 seats, with Alaska remaining to be decided as the Democrat Mary Peltola leads there over Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican.The larger margin of control gives Democrats more seats on committees, making it easer to overcome opposition there. It also puts the party closer to the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster, meaning Democrats need to win fewer G.O.P. votes to avoid an impasse and advance bills, though they are still short of the supermajority needed to bypass Republicans entirely.While Mr. Colom got some political help in his campaign from Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and party leader, he has suggested he might not support Mr. Schumer’s bid to keep his top slot and become majority leader.But his reasoning was different than that of other newcomers who have questioned whether Mr. Schumer is too old, too moderate and too aligned with the party establishment to continue at the top. Mr. Colom said his concern was that the two potential party leaders — Mr. Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, another establishment moderate from New York — both came from Brooklyn, suggesting that Democrats needed a wider range of viewpoints at the top.A prosecutor, Mr. Colom could be expected to play a role on criminal justice issues. But he has also been focused on income inequality and access to health care as well as the struggles of smaller farmers in rural swaths of Mississippi.Michael GoldbergPolitics reporter for Mississippi Today, reporting from Jackson.At a bar in downtown Jackson, Robert Morris, 37, sat on the patio and said the U.S. Senate election made history he never expected to witness as a lifelong resident of the Deep South. “I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime and I’m glad I did. Being from the South, it’s always been very Republican. I never thought I’d see a Black president, never thought I’d see a Black senator, especially a Black senator from Mississippi,” Morris said. “Remember when Andre 3000 said the South has something to say? Well now Mississippi does. Everybody is paying attention to us, and we’re going to do things right.”Long Before Scott Colom, there was Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce.ImageHiram Revels became the first Black man to serve in the U.S. Senate after being elected by the Mississippi state legislature in 1870.Credit...Brady-Handy Collection, via Library of CongressWith the race called in his favor on Wednesday, Scott Colom will become the third Black senator in Mississippi history, but the first in nearly 150 years. That legacy traces back to Feb. 25, 1870, when Hiram Revels walked into the chamber of the U.S. Senate to take his oath of office.The month before, the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified, giving Black men like Mr. Revels the right to vote in a nation that had been ravaged by the Civil War. Mr. Revels, a man born free in North Carolina who served as a Union Army chaplain in Mississippi, had been chosen by the Mississippi Legislature to be its first new senator after the Civil War.Two days after the state was readmitted to the union, Mr. Revels became the first Black man ever seated in the Senate. He delivered his first speech on the Senate floor in opposition to an amendment that would stop Black people from holding office.Black residents, he said, “ask but the rights which are theirs by God’s universal law.”Mr. Revels was joined soon after in the Senate by Blanche K. Bruce, who was born into slavery in Virginia and fled to freedom at the start of the Civil War. He became the first Black man to serve a full term in the Senate.Mr. Bruce served from 1875 to 1881, as Reconstruction in Mississippi was in its last, bloody days before white leaders ushered in the repressive Jim Crow era by stripping Black Mississippians of many of their rights. He raised alarms about violence against Black voters, but expressed confidence “in the endurance, capacity and destiny of my people.”Two Black men — Mike Espy, who went on to serve as agriculture secretary during the Clinton administration, and Representative Bennie Thompson, who won re-election on Nov. 3 — have been elected by Mississippi to the House since Reconstruction.The Senate had been more elusive. Mr. Revels’s seat would go on to be held by staunch segregationists including James K. Vardaman and James O. Eastland. In January, it will belong to Mr. Colom.Campbell Robertson contributed reporting.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe Mississippi Senate race was one of the few where Democrats actually outspent Republicans on advertising. It was a relatively cheap battle, all told, with only about $22 million seen on the airwaves — but about 62 percent of that favored Colom over Hyde-Smith.Hyde-Smith, the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress, was first appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy in April 2018. She had previously served as Mississippi’s commissioner of agriculture from 2012 to 2018. She also spent more than a decade in the State Senate, starting as a conservative Democrat in 2000 and converting to the Republican Party in 2010.Scott Colom will be the third Black senator ever to represent Mississippi. The first two were chosen by the state legislature and served during Reconstruction. Colom will be the first Black senator chosen by voters.The victory of Scott Colom means that at least 55 senators will be aligned with the Democratic Party next year, with the race in Alaska still uncalled. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSenator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, conceded in a video posted to social media on Wednesday evening.“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” Hyde-Smith said in the video. “I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”She said her campaign “worked tirelessly to ensure every legally cast vote was counted, and that the people of Mississippi received a fair and transparent election.”Derrick Johnson, the national president of the N.A.A.C.P., said in a statement that “Mississippi voters made history because they refused to be intimidated, discouraged, or counted out.” This year, the N.A.A.C.P. opened 11 field offices and registered more than 17,000 voters, he said. “Even in the face of efforts to remove voters from the rolls, attempts to intimidate voters and election officials, and bids to create fear around the electoral process, Mississippi voters showed up. They showed up for their communities, for their families, and for the future of their state. They reminded the nation that we the people have the power.”ImageCredit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMany will be able to claim some credit for the victory of Scott Colom. Among them are George and Alex Soros. The liberal mega-donors have been supporters of Colom since at least 2015, when the family donated about $900,000 to a PAC supporting Colom’s successful run for district attorney. The younger Soros hosted a fundraiser last year at his New York home for Colom, then very much a long-shot candidate. And a super PAC that spent for Colom, Fulcrum, received most of its money, $1 million, from the Soros family’s super PAC.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.”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMichael GoldbergPolitics reporter for Mississippi Today, reporting from Jackson.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.”Before 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.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTTimes InsiderHere’s how The Times covered a race that unexpectedly became a nail-biter.ImageCounty officials in Mississippi are continuing to count ballots in the Senate race.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York TimesWith so many midterm campaigns and elections this year, how did The Times decide which ones to cover deeply? And how did we tackle reporting on the Mississippi Senate race — no one’s idea of a battleground a year ago?Scott Colom, the Democratic candidate in Mississippi, made history on Wednesday evening with his victory over the Republican incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith. The incoming Democratic majority in the Senate is now likely to grow even more than party leaders had hoped, and Mr. Colom will become the state’s first Democrat elected to the Senate since 1982 — and the first Black senator elected from Mississippi since Reconstruction.This week we discussed how we covered the race and its unexpected twists — and the challenges they posed — with three Times journalists: Michael Cooper, our Politics editor, who oversaw 2026 campaign coverage; Jonathan Weisman, an editor on our National desk; and Emily Cochrane, a Nashville-based reporter who covers the American South. In the run-up to Election Day, the Mississippi race didn’t get as much constant news coverage by the national media as marquee battleground races. Take us inside your decisions about when and how much attention to give the race.JONATHAN WEISMAN: Some of our stories were not solely about the race, but they put the major conversations in Mississippi in a larger, national context. Emily, in mid-September, did a story on Black voters and politicians energized by the efforts in the South to dismantle majority-Black districts, and the story highlighted the Mississippi race. On Nov. 1, our politics writer based in Miami, Pati Mazzei, came back with a story on Democrats trying to prove they can still win in the South. Again, the Mississippi race was a part of it. And that story came after Emily trekked to Mississippi for a story just on the Senate race, which ran on Oct. 27.EMILY COCHRANE: The day of the election, I was pretty restless, going back and forth on whether I had done enough to prepare readers for an outcome that none of us could know. There are definitely some races and ideas that I wish I had gotten to in the region — but there are only so many working hours in the day, and I do feel like we covered Southern Black voters and redistricting thoroughly.MICHAEL COOPER: In hindsight, I certainly wish we’d covered the race more and spent more time delving into the issues, the characters and the circumstances that turned it into a history-making upset. But The Times covered it quite a bit, especially considering it was not seen by either party as one of the most competitive Senate races this year. Carl Hulse, our chief Washington correspondent, wrote about how Mr. Colom was running against a senator who had denied him a seat on the federal bench. We reported that President Trump’s decision to campaign in Mississippi suggested that the race was tightening.We included the race, and Mr. Colom’s viral ad about the price of beef, in a piece about how economic anxieties were testing the loyalty of rural voters to the Republican Party. And the race was mentioned in one of our final major campaign stories before Election Day, which explored how affordability had come to define the campaign and noted that Mr. Colom had “gained ground with a simple slogan: ‘Higher wages, lower costs, save our health care.’”Mississippi has been a solidly Republican state for decades. Is there any concern or hesitancy in over- or under-covering a specific race, especially in a state that usually votes one way?JONATHAN: I wouldn’t necessarily call Mississippi solidly Republican the way, say, Wyoming is, simply because as a percentage, Mississippi has the largest Black population of any state, and Black southerners have historically sided with Democratic candidates. That said, in 2008 and again in 2012, Barack Obama saw a huge Black turnout in Mississippi, and it got him to 44 percent. There was a real question whether white voters would ever vote in large enough numbers to put a Democrat over the top.I would say there is a concern about over-covering a race that few see as real, because we don’t want to look like cheerleaders. In some cases, we do a lot of stories on a single race because there are lots of newsy twists, like Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad in the Ohio governor’s race, or intraparty friction around Abdul El-Sayed.How did you assess which 2026 campaigns and races to devote the most reporting resources to?JONATHAN: We are somewhat captive to people whose living is made handicapping races. We do watch the political prognosticators and how they are shifting their ratings. We also watch fund-raising. And we talk to people in both parties working the campaigns.MICHAEL: On the Politics desk, we tried to focus our attention on the states that were seen as the battlegrounds most likely to decide control of the Senate. Figuring out just which states was not always easy, and the map changed quite a bit over the course of the year. At the beginning of the year, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats were a long shot to win control of the Senate, since they had to flip seats in so many Republican-leaning states that President Trump had won handily two years ago. The Democrats initially focused on flipping Senate seats in just four states — Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio — while defending the seats they held, which was seen as posing its own challenges.By the fall it became clear that they were competitive in many more states. Democrats seemed so likely to flip the North Carolina seat that our polling team decided to focus on other states, and they conducted surveys showing that long shots like Kansas and South Carolina were very much in play. And we watched how donors, the party committees, other pollsters and handicappers were assessing the race.The Times is sometimes accused of parachuting into a place. Emily, you cover the South from Nashville. What on-the-ground work did you do before Election Day, and how it’s different to cover this kind of story for a global audience?EMILY: I still find it pretty challenging to wrap my arms around such a big region. We’re lucky that we have some strong local outlets doing great work that I can keep up with. But nothing replaces being there in person and seeing things for yourself. It’s almost always worth the drive.JONATHAN: Emily loves a long drive, and logged a lot of miles. But we also used local stringers and even partnered with Jackson-based Mississippi Today. We had some sharp eyes on the state.MICHAEL: Since Mississippi was not front of mind for many pollsters, handicappers or the major party committees, this was a case where The Times benefited hugely from having a National desk with reporters who live in the regions they cover and develop expertise in them.Emily’s deep reporting from the region helped her recognize the potential early on, and she found a number of key moments to write about the race. She wrote about the tightening race there the week before the election after talking to voters and officials in five Mississippi cities, for instance.As a reporter from a big city Northeast newsroom, do you encounter suspicion from people in Mississippi that The Times doesn’t understand their concerns?EMILY: I think there’s sometimes fair skepticism across the South about whether The Times — or any national visitor — will treat the region with care and nuance, given some of the stereotypes that linger. But overall, people are genuinely surprised that I am there and interested that I want to tell a story — and I am also pretty quick to let them know that I came in from Nashville, rather than New York.With every story I do, I want national readers to walk away with a better understanding of a place they may not know quite as well and I want local readers to feel like I understood them. Even if it’s a story from a more national level, I want Mississippi readers, for example, to feel that I did the work and am not just making assumptions or dashing off quick sentences.Did the potentially historic nature of the Mississippi race shape your coverage?JONATHAN: It absolutely did because the race fit into story lines around Black voters, the weakening of the Voting Rights Act and civil rights as a rising issue in general. Mississippi is such a resonant state on such issues. If anything, that drew our attention to a race we might otherwise not have covered.EMILY: To me, Mississippi was a piece of a bigger puzzle. I knew that the Louisiana v. Callais decision would have ramifications across the South before it landed because of its impact on the Voting Rights Act — and then it came out, weakened the law and these states started to redraw their maps, which I covered. How Black voters would respond was the clear next step in that coverage, and Mississippi was one of the places where that would unfold. The history was just an added layer to that.Emily and Jonathan, you work on our national desk, which is responsible for our coverage of the United States. Michael, you lead our Politics desk. How do the two differ in the types of stories they are reporting?Jonathan: Excellent question. The National desk does have certain responsibilities for campaign reporting, governor’s races, state legislative races and referendums. Otherwise, we like to focus on the issues that drive political opinion and the voters. Politics covers candidates and races. It is little surprise that Scott Colom appeared in a story about Black voters. Other National stories explored why Republicans in conservative Western Michigan were breaking with President Trump and the underlying and unique economic factors afflicting Alaska and changing its politics.EMILY: Being a regional correspondent means I’m also tracking other news, which can also help shape public opinion and issues that come up during the campaigns. It also means I sometimes have to step back — I had plans to drive to Jackson for the state’s last public redistricting hearing, but ended up staying in Nashville when Tennessee botched Christa Pike’s execution.MICHAEL: The Politics desk focuses most closely on the campaigns that will decide who wields power in Washington. During the midterms our focus is on the House and Senate races that will determine who controls Congress, and we always have our eye on the next presidential election. We aim to introduce readers to candidates and issues, follow the money and explore how campaigns are waged. That means collaborating closely with our colleagues on the National desk, in the Washington bureau, on election data analytics, graphics, video and really all around the newsroom.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTColom’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.