President Donald Trump just did something he rarely ever does. He complimented a newly elected Black U.S. senator on his campaign strategy.
Sen.-elect Scott Colom beat incredible odds and stunningly made history in deep-red Mississippi when he ousted career politician Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
On Thursday, during an interview with sports analyst and political commentator Stephen A. Smith at the White House, Trump credited Colom with appealing to Republican voters.
Colom’s victory marks the first time Mississippi residents have elected a Black senator by a popular vote since the Reconstruction era.
In the final weeks of the midterm campaign, Trump tried to rally uninspired MAGA supporters and other GOP voters in Republican states that he had won by wide margins in the 2024 presidential election. That included a campaign rally in Corinth, Mississippi, for Hyde-Smith.
During the interview with Smith, Trump doubled down, attributing Republicans’ massive losses across the country to his absence on the ballot, even though at his rallies he implored his supporters to pretend that he was on the ballot.
When Smith asked about Colom’s win, Trump praised the new senator even as he tried to steal some of his thunder.
“I don’t know the gentleman, but I give him credit,” Trump told Smith.
“And you know what he did? He campaigned on lines, I give him a lot of credit for this, he campaigned on lines,” Trump continued.
“I had a rally there, and we had lines that went 10 miles long, and he campaigned on that line, telling everybody in the line what a good job he did,” Trump said before adding, “I give him a lot of credit for that.”
Colom did indeed show up at Trump’s rally in Corinth on Monday, Oct. 26. He talked with voters standing in line waiting to get in to see Trump.
He asked them what their top concerns were and what issues were making the biggest impact on their lives.
Many told him prices, including groceries and gas, the unapproved and deadly war in Iran, data centers, and even “honesty.”
Colom posted the video on social media a few days later, and so far, it’s received almost three million views.
He sent a message, too.
“I walked the Trump rally line to listen, not make assumptions. I talked with voters, asked questions and heard what matters to them. When I’m elected, I’ll represent all 82 counties and every Mississippian, no matter who they voted for. That’s what being your senator means,” he wrote.
Hyde-Smith finally conceded the race on Wednesday, more than a week after Election Day.
In an interview on MS Now Friday morning, Colom elaborated on walking the Trump lines and talking to voters.
Colom said he talked with voters on the streets in Mississippi “for months and months and months.”
“My campaign team would tell you I was doing that even when the cameras weren’t rolling. I was always asking voters what mattered to them and listening,” he explained.
Colom said that when he talked to Trump supporters, he heard the same things as he did from others in the bluest areas of the state.
“Gas, groceries, concerned about the war in Iran, concerned about Flock cameras, just very common-sense stuff,” he said.
Colom offered some advice to politicians and even Trump.
“To be a real leader you have to learn how to listen,” he stated.
He went on to explain how his mom was a judge and that when he was young she always told him, “Scott, if you talk too much your ears will shrink, and if they shrink too much you won’t be able to hear, and she was telling me you gotta listen.”
Well, Colom listened all the way to the U.S. Senate.
Colom also has a history with Hyde-Smith, according to The Hill.
Former President Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in 2023, but the now-outgoing Republican blocked a confirmation hearing for him.
In an ironic twist, if she had allowed a hearing for Colom three years ago, she might not have lost her Senate seat in the midterms.
