Democrat Colom wins Mississippi Senate seat, becomes state’s first Black senator since 1874

WASHINGTON: Democratic challenger Scott Colom defeated incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi election for the US Senate, media projected on Wednesday, making him the Southern state’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era that followed the US Civil War.

The result was a stunning upset in the heavily Republican state and expanded on the national drubbing the Democrats delivered to President Donald Trump’s Republicans in the November 3 midterm elections.

The Mississippi Senate race was one of the final races to be called after the elections. The contest was so tight that Colom at times led the vote count by only a few dozen votes.