What did Colom get right in his win over Hyde-Smith? Pretty much everything

Democratic challenger Scott Colom’s upset win over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, in red, red Mississippi of all places, will be studied by Deep South politicos from both major parties for years to come. 

I predict it will be a blueprint, a road map for Democrats and a bogeyman of what not to do for Republicans.

So what did Colom’s campaign get right? Well, pretty much everything, it would appear as the dust settles.

First, and foremost, he worked. He campaigned hard, while Hyde-Smith hardly campaigned, at least until the homestretch.

Colom crisscrossed the state nonstop, shook every hand and kissed every baby, so to speak (and he didn’t get the two mixed up, lol). He met the voters where they were, and he listened to them. That’s becoming more and more rare, in the age of big-money campaigns.

Colom adopted a clear message, and he stuck to it: It’s affordability, stupid. When you get a gift from Republicans, don’t overthink it. He expanded his messaging here and there, but he kept the main thing the main thing.

READ MORE: Turns out, Mississippi voters were paying attention in the Colom, Hyde-Smith Senate race

Speaking of money, Colom had little to start with, and national Democratic interests had, as usual, written Mississippi off as too Republican to bother with.

But what resources he did secure early on, he deployed wisely. If he and his crew ever want a new career, they could start an ad agency. The don’t pick another protein/pick another senator, and other ads drew national attention and campaign donations. 

His wise use of resources and sticktoitiveness helped convince national Democrats to sink resources into his campaign. It was kind of late in the game, but he was ready and seized on it.

In Mississippi, even before national resources flowed in, Colom didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. He relied on decades of others’ organizing work before him, and he united many different groups that helped organize and get-out-the-vote. If there was infighting, it didn’t spill out into the public or slow the campaign’s momentum. That is a feat.

Colom also appeared to keep his own counsel. He most certainly was advised to follow some conventional Mississippi Democratic campaign wisdom, and appeared to often ignore it. For many years, some statewide Democratic candidates have tried to keep the national party and its leaders at arm’s length. I recall one time many years ago when a Democratic candidate tried to keep it under wraps that the chair of the Democratic National Committee was coming to Mississippi, and their campaign folks got a little perturbed when news of it leaked to the media.

Colom read the tea leaves correctly: Americans wanted change from the current GOP led by President Donald Trump, including those in Mississippi. He embraced support from his party. He reportedly shrugged off advice to not have former Vice President Kamala Harris campaign for him. He embraced a who’s who of national party leaders past and present.

But Colom also appeared to get a sizeable amount of crossover votes. It’s hard to say exactly how many, but he overperformed other Democratic candidates by more than 25,000 votes. That wasn’t all just turning out Democrats.

He campaigned in Republican strongholds, didn’t write them off. For God’s sake, the man gladhanded with folks in line for a Trump rally in Corinth. Hyde-Smith, by the way, didn’t.

He flipped seven counties from R to D, including some big ‘uns. DeSoto County, which Hyde-Smith had previously won by 16 points, saw a well over 20-point swing, with Colom winning the normally GOP stronghold. He thwarted Hyde-Smith from running up big numbers on the Coast. 

Colom won in many of the suburbs, including Madison County and the aforementioned DeSoto, and he did well in college communities in Lafayette, Forrest and Oktibbeha counties. He held his own in many rural Republican areas, and he amped up turnout in the Delta and other rural Democratic areas.

Over many years in Mississippi, we’ve seen many Democrats play the woulda-shoulda-couda game and do some fingerpointing after (or even during) elections, even ones where they lost by fairly narrow margins. I think we’ll be seeing a good bit of that from Republicans now, although most of their fingers could point to President Trump.

It would appear Colom, of course building on the work of others over many years, helped solidify some infrastructure for the state Democratic Party and get the national party’s attention and resources, the lack of which Mississippi Democrats have long lamented. 

Will it last? Time will tell, but having a Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi, and a blueprint that worked in the Deep South, will help.