Democrat Colom will be Mississippi's first Black senator in more than 100 years, AP projects

Colom's win will be the eighth Senate pickup for Democrats.

Democrat Scott Colom will upset Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, The Associated Press projected Wednesday, flipping a Republican seat in a ruby-red state.

With 99% of the expected vote reported, Colom leads with 49.2%, and Hyde-Smith has 48.7% of the vote, with Colom leading by about 4,700 votes.

Colom's win is the eighth Democratic pickup in the Senate with the race in Alaska yet to be decided.

Colom is a district attorney for four counties along the Mississippi-Alabama state line and a former nominee to become a U.S. district judge. He will be Mississippi's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.

While his campaign had initially been seen as a long shot, Colom built up more buzz in the last few months of the campaign, appearing with major party figures such as former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris. He also went viral with a campaign video where he mocked Hyde-Smith over comments she made about choosing other options for proteins because of high beef prices.

Hyde-Smith, who was running for a second full term, campaigned with President Donald Trump during a rally in October and insisted she was the right choice for the state.

Colom and Hyde-Smith had some history even before Colom's Senate run, as she blocked his nomination for federal judge in 2023, although Colom has said he has forgiven her for doing so.

Colom told ABC News in an interview after Election Day that his campaign didn't get much attention or resources outside Mississippi until about a month ago because some in his party couldn't fathom that Democrats could flip a Senate seat in the Magnolia State.

He says that forced him to build a ground game which took him to many areas of the state and put him face-to-face with a lot of voters. He said many of those voters gravitated towards him because they were tired of broken promises in Washington.

"The voters were betrayed. That gave us an opportunity to compete everywhere. And for me, I wasn't afraid to call that out, and I wasn't also afraid to say what I was going to do," he said.

Both campaigns and their associated political parties had indicated after Election Day, as the margin between them remained tight in the vote count, that they were ready for potential litigation in the race, particularly over provisional ballots that both sides estimated could number in the thousands.