Who is Scott Colom, and how did his viral ads help secure Mississippi Senate stunner?

Sen.-elect Scott Colom (D-MS) pulled off one of the most unexpected victories of the 2026 midterm elections, unseating Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) and ending more than four decades of Democratic losses in the state’s Senate races.Colom, a district attorney who had been largely overlooked by national political observers for much of the campaign, narrowly defeated Hyde-Smith in a race that was called more than a week after Election Day. His campaign gained national traction with a series of unconventional advertisements, including a viral spot mocking Hyde-Smith’s response to questions about rising beef prices.The Associated Press called the race Wednesday, with Colom leading 49.2% to Hyde-Smith’s 48.7%. The result came after more than a week of counting absentee and provisional ballots. Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom and his wife Nadia Colom, take pictures alongside daughter’s Gwendolyn Lucille Colom and Brooklyn Madison Colom, at an election event in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt) The victory marks the first time a Democrat has won a Mississippi Senate election since 1982 and makes Colom the first black senator elected from the state since Reconstruction. Colom, 43, is a Mississippi native, attorney, and longtime local prosecutor who built his political career in the northeastern part of the state.A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District since 2016, overseeing prosecutions across several counties. He previously became the first black district attorney in Columbus, Mississippi, where he was born and raised.In 2022, then-President Joe Biden nominated Colom to serve as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The nomination ultimately stalled after Hyde-Smith declined to return her blue slip, a Senate Judiciary Committee procedure that allows home-state senators to weigh in on judicial nominees.Hyde-Smith’s opposition effectively prevented the nomination from advancing. She cited Colom’s past support for a political action committee funded by liberal billionaire George Soros and his position on legislation concerning transgender athletes.Colom subsequently launched his Senate campaign, challenging the senator who had derailed his judicial nomination.During the campaign, he also connected his candidacy to Mississippi’s civil rights history, arguing that the state’s political landscape was more competitive than national observers typically acknowledged.Ahead of Election Day, Colom pointed to the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which addressed congressional redistricting and voting rights, as a factor that helped galvanize black voters.“I mean, the Callais decision helped me, right? We’ve got African American voters understanding that voting rights are on the line,” Colom told Politico before Election Day. “People are conditioned not to think Mississippi as competitive. But the reality is that outside presidential years, our elections are a lot closer than people realize.” Although Colom consistently emphasized affordability throughout his campaign, one particular comment from Hyde-Smith gave his campaign an opportunity to bring its message to a wider audience.Earlier this year, the Republican senator was asked about rising beef prices and the financial pressure facing consumers. Hyde-Smith, a cattle farmer and former Mississippi agriculture commissioner, responded that food prices fluctuate and consumers “have so many proteins to choose from.” Colom’s campaign seized on the remark, turning it into a mocking advertisement that quickly spread across social media.Released Oct. 13, the video opens with footage of Hyde-Smith making the comment before cutting to a series of Mississippians reacting to her response.A man standing beside a grill asks, “Pick another protein?” before responding that he would rather “pick another senator instead.”A woman in a diner delivers a similar response, saying Hyde-Smith had “lost her damn mind.” Another woman, standing in a grocery store, begins questioning the senator’s suggestion before the advertisement cuts to Colom sitting at a dining table.Colom laughs before repeating the campaign’s central message: “Pick another senator instead.”The advertisement quickly became a viral sensation. The video accumulated approximately 20 million views on social media platform X. The ad struck at an issue Colom had already made central to his candidacy: the rising cost of everyday necessities, which he blamed on the Trump administration. He repeatedly criticized Hyde-Smith over grocery prices, gasoline costs, and healthcare expenses, arguing that the incumbent was disconnected from the financial pressures facing Mississippi families.Democrats saw an opportunity in deep-red Mississippi Colom’s victory also followed an unusual investment of national Democratic resources into a state that had largely been written off by the party in recent election cycles.Democrats outspent Republicans on Mississippi’s television and digital advertising markets, with approximately $7.5 million in Democratic advertising compared with less than $4.9 million from Republicans, according to AdImpact figures provided during the campaign.A group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) contributed a late $1.2 million advertising investment, prompting the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund to respond with its own buy of more than $1 million.President Donald Trump also traveled to Mississippi in October to campaign alongside Hyde-Smith, an indication that Republicans were paying attention to the unexpectedly competitive contest. The visit came despite his commanding victory in the state just two years earlier.Colom, meanwhile, attracted support from prominent Democratic stars, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.The election results suggest that Trump’s 2024 coalition did not translate into the same level of participation in this year’s Senate contest. Voter surveys indicated that Mississippi voters who supported Trump in 2024 backed him by a smaller margin this year, suggesting that a significant number of his previous supporters did not participate in the Senate election.WES MOORE SET TO RELEASE BOOK WITH MESSAGE OF HEALING DIVIDED NATIONColom also criticized national political forecasters for dismissing his chances throughout the campaign. The Cook Political Report and other election analysts had rated the race heavily in Hyde-Smith’s favor for much of the election cycle.“At some point, we have to talk about @CookPolitical and other ‘prognosticators’ who had me and other southern candidates labeled as solid R for much of the campaign cycle,” Colom wrote on X. “They made it much more difficult to fundraise and are part of the reason the South has been neglected for so long.”