Scott Colom wins U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi

(Reuters) – Democrat Scott Colom won a stunning upset in Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race on Wednesday after days of counting, U.S. media projected, defeating ​Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith to become the Southern state’s first Black since the Reconstruction era that followed the U.S. Civil War.

It was one of the final outstanding races to be called since Tuesday’s elections, in which Democrats overwhelmed Republicans ​to win control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Mississippi ​officials took days to count ballots in a race that was ⁠so tight that Colom at times led by only a few dozen ​votes. Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, became the first Democrat to win a ​Mississippi Senate seat since John Stennis in 1982.

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Hyde-Smith, 67, who was first elected in 2018, had consistently led in opinion polls in a state that President Donald Trump won ​by nearly 23 points in 2024. Trump campaigned in Mississippi for Hyde-Smith ​near the end of the race.