Eastern Mississippi District Attorney Scott Colom is projected to win the Mississippi Senate race, defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by around 0.5 percentage points. It is the biggest upset of the 2026 midterm elections, as Mississippi voted for President Donald Trump by 22 points against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Colom, an elected district attorney in eastern Mississippi, faced Hyde-Smith in a race that was made all the more personal by history between the two. In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom from a federal judgeship to which then-President Joe Biden had appointed him.
Mississippi has not elected a Democratic senator since 1982. Colom will be the first Black person to represent Mississippi in the Senate since Reconstruction in the 1880s, and the first Democrat to become a Mississippi senator since John Stennis.
Like many Democrats, Colom had made affordability a key campaign issue and hammered Hyde-Smith with viral advertisements. He also campaigned on voting rights and Black voter suppression in Mississippi, especially after Supreme Court stripped away key elements of the Voting Rights Act.
Democrats Flip The Senate
Colom’s unlikely victory was the cherry on top for Democrats, who routed Republicans across the US to flip control of both the House and the Senate. He will be the 55th Democrat in the Senate, with Mary Peltola expected to win the Alaska Senate race against incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and become the 56th.
Democrats flipped an astounding eight Senate seats so far in the 2026 midterms: Texas, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, and Mississippi.
With 55/56 seats, Democrats will hold the largest Senate majority by either party since 2011.
