District Attorney and Mississippi State Senate candidate Scott Colom gives an update on his Senate race against Cindy Hyde-Smith on November 4, 2026 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Rogelio V. Solis | Getty Images
Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won the Mississippi Senate race, but the local prosecutor was hailed as a historical figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district, where civil rights leaders once organized.
“It’s great! It’s great to have Scott Colom as our representative,” said Marty Joan Primm, owner of Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in Jackson.
The state is still counting votes that could make Mr. Colom the first black senator from the Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction. Mr. Colom’s possibility of defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has left many black voters somewhere between cautious optimism and outright celebration in a state where nearly 40 percent of the population is black but the top elected officials have been white for generations.
“I’m really happy that we’ve reached this stage,” said Solly Tarawally, a 76-year-old lawyer who has known Colom’s father for many years. He called the 43-year-old candidate “this man, our messiah, our savior.”
It’s still too early for the Associated Press to call a race, and Colom’s historic candidacy will depend on a tedious process at election offices in Mississippi’s 82 counties. Local officials are receiving and inspecting absentee and provisional ballots, known as affidavit ballots, ahead of next week’s deadline. Volunteers and lawyers representing each side are monitoring the case for possible lawsuits.
“We’re going to make sure everything is in accordance with the law. I trust the local authorities,” Colom said. “They’re doing their job. We have to be patient.”
Colom said the polls since Tuesday’s election were trending in his favor and scolded Hyde-Smith for not explaining his strategy going forward.
“She’s still our senator. Where is she? Why isn’t she being interviewed?” Colom asked. “Why can’t she explain her path to success?”
Mr Hyde-Smith has not been seen in public since election night, when he effectively declared victory despite a narrow margin with votes still to be counted.
“We will not back down,” she posted on social media on Friday. “This election is not over yet. Our teams are working across Mississippi to monitor remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through!”
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, the first Democratic senator to campaign with Mr. Colom this year, said in an interview that she returned from the trip knowing voters “would be really energized by a candidate like Scott.” But Mr. Alsobrooks, the state’s first black senator, added that after years of defeat, “what I felt when I came to Mississippi was that there was a problem with my faith.”
“They now know their vote matters,” she says.
Unknown number of outstanding ballots
The backlog of ballots, including absentee ballots, can be counted in Mississippi if they are received by Tuesday, five business days after the election. The rest are affidavit ballots, which will be cast at the polling place if there is a problem. Perhaps the person’s name is not on the list, the person does not have proper identification, or poll workers may have determined that the person’s identification does not exactly match the name on the list.
Citizens with ID problems must attend their local elections office in person by Tuesday. If a person is not on the district’s register, local authorities can check their status using past records or information from the affidavit they submit when filling out their ballot. Usually, that person is not responsible for coming to the local election office. Voting status can be found on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office website.
The county has until Friday to certify its complete results to the Secretary of State.
Mississippi law does not provide for a statewide recount. Campaigns would typically seek court orders to examine ballots county by county.
The earthquake will affect Mississippi, not DC.
Democrats already control the Senate, so the Mississippi result will not change the balance of power in Washington.
But it would mark a major shift in a state where white conservatives have dominated the state Legislature and Congressional delegation for nearly 150 years. Throughout the era of Jim Crow segregation and the civil rights movement, these leaders were almost all Democrats. After the civil rights movement, they overwhelmingly moved to the Republican Party. The result was the same for Black Mississippians, with a lack of proportional representation in the upper echelons of state government and in Washington.
Initially, Mr. Colom appeared to have little hope, and it wasn’t until late October that leading Senate Democratic campaign groups began spending on advertising to support him. But the midterm elections revealed a widespread backlash against redistricting in the South aimed at increasing Republican support and, in turn, reducing black representation.
Prim’s Bookstore, which Colom visited on Friday, opened in the 1930s and is known as the oldest black-owned bookstore in the United States.
She said the Farish Street area still represents the “first migration from the plantations to the city” of black Mississippians. Having Colom there as a Senate candidate “makes us very proud and gives us someone to look up to. Our young people need to see the possibilities in their lives, and as we see the next senator coming out of Mississippi, we think so too.”
During his campaign, Colom emphasized that he represents all of Mississippi, saying President Donald Trump’s policies, especially the war with Iran and tariffs, cut across all demographic groups. He even praised the extension of vote counting for benefiting the state’s 2.95 million residents.
“It’s great to see the national media recognize the beauty of our state,” he said.
But Colom and his black supporters also never ignored the importance of his candidacy as a black man.
“We’re motivated by the gross inequalities that we see in society and how only one side seems to be benefiting,” said Tarawally, who was born in Sierra Leone and came to the Deep South to attend law school at the University of Mississippi. “So we need someone to speak up for our interests.”
Mr. Colom ended his campaign with an ad placed at the Jackson home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was shot in his driveway in 1963 and died in front of his wife and children.
“This is a stark reminder of the sacrifices made to get out the vote, and no one sacrificed more than Medgar Evers and his family,” Colom said Friday.
“What was important to me about that ad was that we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about sacrifice, we just talked about stories,” he continued. “I just wanted this to be the last ad. I wanted it to be the last message the people of Mississippi would hear.”
