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Colom's projected Mississippi win ends decades of Democratic Senate defeats

The report connects the result with Black voter organizing, rejected ballots and demands to make voting easier.

Channel: CNN ·

United StatesStory of November 12, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Dem Scott Colom flips Mississippi Senate seat, CNN projects

Things we can learn from the video

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0:00Tapper announces the projection that Colom will defeat Hyde-Smith and gain a Senate seat for Democrats.
0:39Tapper places Colom's projected election in the history of Black representation in Mississippi.
3:32Grayer describes Colom's efforts to mobilize young Black voters and make Mississippi feel politically consequential.
5:05Grayer reports that Hinds County accepted 817 provisional affidavit ballots and rejected 1,609.
6:14Taylor credits sustained organizing, while the discussion examines Colom's advertising and outreach beyond Democratic voters.
8:48Taylor calls for online registration, same-day registration and early voting in Mississippi.

Scott Colom will defeat Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, the United States' Cable News Network (CNN) projects, turning a closely watched count into a Democratic Senate pickup in a Republican stronghold.

Announcing the result on The Lead, Jake Tapper describes a breakthrough with significance beyond party control: Colom would become Mississippi's first Black senator elected since Reconstruction. The network says he is also the first Democrat voters in the state have elected to the Senate in more than four decades, expanding the party's incoming majority.

Colom has served as a district attorney in eastern Mississippi since 2016. Reporter Annie Grayer, reporting from Hinds County, describes a campaign focused on mobilizing young Black voters and persuading people that their participation could matter. "And Scott Colom's message has been: Mississippi matters," she says.

The ballot count forms an important part of her report. Grayer says Hinds County received an unprecedented number of provisional affidavit ballots, with 817 accepted and 1,609 rejected. Those are ballots requiring further eligibility checks, rather than votes automatically included in the initial count.

Charles Taylor, executive director of the Mississippi NAACP, places the outcome in the context of sustained organizing. Tapper highlights Colom's political advertising and his willingness to speak with Trump supporters at a rally. Taylor emphasizes reaching younger voters where they already spend time: "And so he met them online, and then they met him at the polls."

The broadcast also looks back at Mississippi's history of racial violence and disenfranchisement, including archival footage of Nina Simone performing "Mississippi Goddam." That history frames Taylor's closing argument that an electoral breakthrough does not settle questions about access to voting. He calls for online voter registration, same-day registration and early voting.

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