Scott Colom Projected To Win Mississippi & Defeat Cindy Hyde Smith

"Scott Colom only need 10,000 votes between Holmes and LeFlore Counties to win Mississippi." - Hattiesburg News

HATTIESBURG, Miss (THN News) - Democrat Scott Colom trailed Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 11,332 votes Tuesday night, with only Leflore and Holmes counties yet to report in the tally shared with Hattiesburg News. Both counties are Democratic strongholds. Whether they can put Colom ahead depends on how many people voted and how large a margin he wins there.

If the count elsewhere holds steady, Colom needs 11,333 more votes than Hyde-Smith across the two counties to take a one-vote lead. If Hyde-Smith receives 3,000 votes between Leflore and Holmes, for example, Colom would need at least 14,333. The election-night update provided the margin but did not include either candidate’s statewide vote total.

A Colom victory would make him the first Black U.S. senator elected directly by Mississippi voters. The Legislature chose the state’s two previous Black senators, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, during Reconstruction. Mississippi has gone 145 years without a Black senator since Bruce left office in 1881. www.senate.gov

Elsewhere Tuesday, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson in Georgia to become the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, voters elected Stacey Plaskett as the territory’s first woman governor.

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