Scott Colom Projected To Win Mississippi and Defeats Cindy Hyde Smith

"Scott Colom is projected to win Mississippi according to Hattiesburg News Projections. Democrat Scott Colom defeats Republican Cindy Hyde Smith. Scott Colom is the first black senator to go to Congress in modern history." - Hattiesburg News

HATTIESBURG, Miss (THN News) - Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, according to Hattiesburg News projections, becoming the first African American that Mississippi voters have directly elected to the U.S. Senate in modern history.

His victory will send a Black Mississippian to the Senate for the first time in 145 years.

Mississippi sent the nation’s first Black senator, Hiram Revels, to Washington in 1870. Five years later, Blanche K. Bruce began a full six-year term. Both men were chosen by the Mississippi Legislature, as U.S. senators were at the time. When Bruce left office in 1881, he was the last Black Mississippian to hold a Senate seat.

With Colom’s victory, Mississippi voters have chosen his successor more than a century later.

Colom's victory marks the first time Mississippi voters directly elected a Black U.S. senator. The state legislature chose both of his Reconstruction-era predecessors. Hiram Revels became the nation’s first Black senator in 1870. Blanche K. Bruce followed in 1875 and served until 1881.

In Illinois, Democrat Juliana Stratton defeated Republican Don Tracy to become the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate from her state, following Carol Moseley Braun’s breakthrough in 1992. When Stratton takes office, three Black women will serve in the Senate together for the first time in American history. and for the nation

In Maryland, voters gave Gov. Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor, a second term. Moore defeated Republican Dan Cox, the same opponent he faced when he first won the governorship in 2022.

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