Democrat Scott Colom (pictured alongside Kamala Harris) scored a surprising victory in the Mississippi race for the U.S. Senate.
According to projections by the American press, after days of vote counting, he defeated the incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, becoming the first Black senator from this southern state since the Reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, Reuters reports.
He is also the first Democrat elected senator in this southern state since 1982.
The moment is so shocking that it became the subject of memes.
The Mississippi race was one of the last undecided results after the November 3 elections, in which Democrats outperformed Republicans, gaining control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress.
Mississippi authorities needed several days to count the ballots in such a tight race where, at times, Colom was leading by only a few dozen votes.
Colom, a 43-year-old prosecutor, became the first Democrat to win a seat in the Mississippi Senate since John Stennis in 1982.
Cindy Hyde-Smith, 67, who was first elected in 2018, consistently led in opinion polls in a state where President Donald Trump won by nearly a 23% margin in 2024. Trump even campaigned in Mississippi towards the end of the electoral race.
During the campaign, Colom worked hard to reach voters directly, through public meetings as well as visits to social housing, festivals, and food trucks. “We took the hard road, locally,” he said.
The last Black candidate elected to the Senate in Mississippi was former slave Blanche Bruce, in 1874.
In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination by former President Joe Biden for the position of federal district judge in northern Mississippi, citing his stance on transgender-related issues. The other Mississippi senator, Republican Roger Wicker, supported Colom’s nomination.