Mississippi US Senate seat flips as Scott Colom tops incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith

JACKSON, Miss. - More than a week after Election Day, we finally have a winner for the U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi as Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, becoming the first first Black senator from the Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction.

Dig deeper:

Colom defeated Hyde-Smith by 4,669 votes. His win is seen as a seismic shift in the state, where white conservatives have dominated the Mississippi Statehouse and congressional delegation for nearly 150 years.  

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The closeness of the race came as a surprise as Colom was at first considered a long shot to win with election forecasters never expecting the contest to be so close.

According to Fox News, a majority of prognosticators rated the contest as either solid or likely Republican, even though the final poll showed Colom trailing Hyde-Smith by just three points, within the margin of error.

The backstory:

In late October, Senate Democrats’ top campaign group spent $1.2 million on television advertisements to support him.

While campaigning, Colom emphasized that he can represent all Mississippians and campaigned on lower costs for families, saving Mississippi hospitals, and creating more jobs in the state.

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Colon, who was born and raised in Columbus, Mississippi, is the son of retired Judge Dorothy Colom – the first African-American to be elected to her region’s Chancery Court – and Wilbur Colom, an attorney and one-time Republican who worked for Ronald Reagan.

In 2015, Colon was elected as the District Attorney for Mississippi's 16th Judicial District which covers four counties in the eastern part of the state: Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, and Oktibbeha counties.

Colon and his wife Nadia have two daughters.

The Source: This article includes information from The Associated Press, FOX News, and previous FOX Local reporting. This story was reported from Orlando.