WASHINGTON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Democratic challenger Scott Colom defeated incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi election for the US Senate, media projected on Wednesday, making him the Southern state's first Black senator since the Reconstruction era that followed the US Civil War.
The result was a stunning upset in the heavily Republican state and expanded on the national drubbing the Democrats delivered to President Donald Trump's Republicans in the November 3 midterm elections.
The Mississippi Senate race was one of the final races to be called after the elections. The contest was so tight that Colom at times led the vote count by only a few dozen votes.
The latest media-tabulated results showed him ahead by more than 4,500 votes, or 0.5 percentage point.
Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, became the first Democrat to win a Mississippi Senate seat since John Stennis in 1982. He harnessed frustration over the cost of living with a breakout campaign ad in which voters ridiculed Hyde-Smith's suggestion that consumers could choose other "proteins" instead of paying rising beef prices.
Hyde-Smith, 67, who was appointed to the Senate in 2018 and won a special election later that year, had consistently led opinion polls in a state that Trump won by nearly 23 points in 2024. Trump campaigned in Mississippi for Hyde-Smith near the end of the race.
"While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well," Hyde-Smith said in a video posted on social media.
DEMOCRATS' MARGIN GROWS IN CONGRESS
In the midterms, Republicans lost control of both chambers, leaving Trump facing a Democratic-controlled Congress for the first time in either of his two terms and presenting the opposition party with a chance to block highly partisan legislation and investigate Trump's administration.
The Mississippi victory gives the Democrats a 55-44 advantage in the 100-member Senate, with the winner in one Senate race from last week's election — in Alaska — yet to be determined. The Democrats have also gained 41 seats in the House of Representatives so far, holding an advantage of 254 to 168 with 13 races yet to be called.
In addition, Democrats won several high-profile federal and statewide races in states long dominated by Republicans, including Texas.
Mississippi's white voters, deep in the once-segregated South, turned the state solidly Republican with the political realignment that followed the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Many of the movement's defining battles took place in Mississippi, where Black people faced discrimination in voting, employment, education and public accommodations.
'WE ARE ON THE RISE'
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat and possible 2028 presidential contender, hailed Colom's victory as history-making. "For too long, Southern Democrats have been overlooked, left out, and even looked down upon - but we are on the rise," he said on X.
Colom told Reuters in an October interview that Mississippi voters felt betrayed by Trump policies such as the war in Iran, which has driven up fuel prices.
On the campaign trail, Colom said, he focused on reaching voters through town halls as well as visits to public housing, festivals and food trucks. "We did it the hard way, the grassroots way," he said.
October rallies with Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Cory Booker of New Jersey boosted his campaign.
The last Black candidate elected to the Senate in Mississippi was former slave Blanche Bruce in 1874.
In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom's nomination by former President Joe Biden to serve as a federal district judge in northern Mississippi, citing his position on transgender issues. Mississippi's other US senator, Republican Roger Wicker, supported his nomination for the post.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado and Leah Douglas, Jasper Ward and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Howard Goller, Michelle Nichols and Cynthia Osterman)
