In perhaps the most stunning upset of the 2026 midterm cycle, Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested Senate race.

Colom’s historic win marks the eighth Senate seat Democrats were able to flip from Republican control this cycle, giving the party a total of 55 seats in the chamber. If Democrats win the still-undecided Alaska Senate race, their majority will grow to 56-44.

Hyde-Smith called Colom to concede around 6 p.m. ET, two sources close to the Colom campaign told MS NOW. The GOP senator posted a video to X moments later, saying, “I respect the decision of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”

He also received congratulatory phone calls Wednesday night from former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both of whom endorsed Colom, a campaign spokesman told MS NOW.

Colom will become Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction and the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the Southern GOP stronghold since 1982. His surprise victory underscores the seismic shift toward the Democratic Party, even in the Deep South.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, hailed the victory for Colom and for Black voters whose political power was curtailed by the Supreme Court and threatened by the Trump administration.

“Black voters once again demonstrated the power of civic engagement and the strength of our democracy,” Johnson said. “Even in the face of efforts to remove voters from the rolls, attempts to intimidate voters and election officials, and bids to create fear around the electoral process, Mississippi voters showed up.”

The Associated Press declared Colom the winner Wednesday evening, after his hairline lead steadily grew during the state’s protracted counting of thousands of mail-in absentee and provisional ballots, which are known in the state as affidavit ballots.

The latest vote tally update proved decisive: Jackson County, a Republican stronghold, reported more than 2,000 additional votes, but Hyde-Smith failed to gain any ground on her opponent. By Wednesday, Colom was leading Hyde-Smith by 4,669 votes, a margin too wide for the Republican incumbent to close.

The race between Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, and Hyde-Smith, a Trump loyalist who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, became the nail-biter of the midterms. Ironically, the Democratic challenger had Hyde-Smith to thank for his own candidacy.

Colom was nominated to be a federal judge by former President Joe Biden in 2023 but Hyde-Smith single-handedly blocked his nomination — paving the way for him to run against her, and win, three years later.

Because Mississippi is the only state in the country without a recount law, lawyers for both campaigns had descended on the state the day after Election Day as Republicans prepared for a potential legal challenge.

Colom campaigned relentlessly to become the state’s first Democratic senator in nearly 45 years. He told MS NOW in March that his confidence in his ability to flip the state blue after decades of Republican control came down to math: Democratic turnout rose 70% during his primary compared to 2018, the last time a Senate seat was up during a midterm year.

“The gap between Republican and Democratic voters in Mississippi was only 8,000,” Colom told MS NOW in March. “That’s a historic turnout, and that shows that we had the momentum. We’ve been putting cracks in the glass.”

Colom mounted his campaign largely without the backing of his party’s national establishment, with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee waiting until just six days before Election Day to announce a $500,000 investment in the race.

By November, that glass had shattered. A series of last-minute ad buys from Democratic-aligned super PACs and a parade of endorsements from the party’s biggest stars, including Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, helped boost Colom’s candidacy.

Mississippi also has the largest Black population of any state in the country, at 38%. Democracy Alliance, the progressive donor network, targeted the state early in the election cycle as a long-neglected opportunity for building “Black and progressive civic power.”

Colom’s win cemented Democrats’ reddest pickup in the watershed midterms cycle. Black voters helped fuel Democratic gains deep into Republican territory this year. That held true in Mississippi. Colom will now be one of a record number of Black senators who are slated to take office in January.

Kabir Khanna and Symone Sanders Townsend contributed to this report.

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