For more than four decades, Mississippi politics had one rule you could count on: Democrats don't win Senate races there.
The last time one did was 1982.
On Wednesday, that streak ended. More than a week after Election Day, Democrat Scott Colom was declared the winner over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a two-term incumbent endorsed by President Trump.
And with that win, Mississippi made history twice.
"One Mississippi, Two Mississippi"
The race was so close that it took more than a week to call. Election night came and went with no winner, and both candidates said they expected to be heading to Washington.
As of Thursday morning, Nov. 12, AP's count showed Colom with 474,804 votes (49.2%) and Hyde-Smith with 469,199 votes (48.7%), with about 99% of the vote counted. Independent Ty Pinkins took 2.1%.
Hyde-Smith called Colom on Wednesday afternoon to concede. In her farewell, she said her "love for Mississippi" would never end.
Former President Bill Clinton summed up the long wait with a nod to the old counting trick, writing on Facebook that "we may have had to count one Mississippi, two Mississippi" before the result came in.
History Made Twice
First: Colom is the first Democrat Mississippi has sent to the Senate since 1982.
Second: He is the first Black man to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate in nearly 150 years.
Mississippi actually sent the very first Black senators in American history to Washington. Hiram Revels was seated in 1870, and Blanche K. Bruce served from 1875 to 1881. Both were Republicans chosen by the state legislature during Reconstruction, back when senators weren't elected by popular vote.
After Reconstruction ended, Jim Crow laws shut Black Mississippians out of power for generations. That makes Colom the first Black senator Mississippi voters have ever chosen directly at the ballot box.
The Man Who Was Once Blocked
Colom's win comes with a twist. He serves as district attorney for Mississippi's 16th Circuit, and in 2023 he was nominated to be a federal judge. Former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour backed the nomination.
Hyde-Smith blocked it.
Three years later, Colom beat her for her Senate seat. But he has said his campaign was never about getting even, and that he has forgiven her.
A Victory Speech Full of History
Colom celebrated at Tougaloo College in Jackson, a historic center of Mississippi's Civil Rights Movement, on Veterans Day. He used the moment to honor Medgar Evers, the World War II veteran and civil rights leader who came home to Mississippi and was denied the right to vote, before he was assassinated in 1963.
Colom told the crowd that Evers had faith a night like this was possible. Then he added: "All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this."
So Is Mississippi Really Blue Now?
Not exactly. Republicans still hold the state's other Senate seat, and the GOP has dominated Mississippi politics for decades.
But political scientists are calling this a significant shift. Turnout was high, fueled in part by fights over redistricting after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year. Voters of both races, many citing the economy, schools, and health care, helped push Colom over the line.
For more than 40 years, Mississippi's Senate seats looked like a sure thing. This November, one of the reddest states in America proved that nothing in politics is guaranteed.
