After over a week of making sure every legal vote counted, Democrat Scott Colom can now say he is a Mississippi U.S. Senator.
The district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District beat Incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) by nearly 4,700 votes, according to The Associated Press.
Colom will be the first Black U.S. senator for Mississippi since Blanche Bruce, who served in the Senate from 1875 to 1881, during and post-Reconstruction era. He will also be the first Democrat in the seat since 1989, following in the footsteps of John Stennis.
The nail-bitting race came down to counties having to verify affidavit ballots, which are provisional votes coming from people whose eligibility election workers could not immediately verify at the polls. It’s often because a voter lacks an acceptable photo ID or did not appear on the voter rolls.
Mississippi election officials also had five business days to receive and count absentee mail-in ballots, provided voters postmarked them by Election Day.
Colom always felt very confident that he’d be heading to Washington as the state’s next senator.
“Where we are, where the ballots are, we’re gonna win,” Colom said while addressing his supporters the day after the election. “This is our election. We’ve won it. The people have done it. They’ve decided to go in a new direction. I’m confident of that.”
Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith had been quiet about the elections until reporters caught up with her at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
“We are still counting votes and there’s a few thousand out, and we feel confident,” she said.
Colom took a different view, suggesting Hyde-Smith was refusing to reckon with the possibility of losing her seat.
“At some point we have to put the people of Mississippi above our personal feelings and partisan politics,” he said.
Final results show that Colom was able to secure his seat by flipping at least 18 counties that previously voted for Donald Trump. This includes Forrest County which was named after the Ku Klux Klan’s first Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Many credit Colom’s victory to his outside-of-the-box ads and young voter turnout. His campaign focused on economic policies, and he presented himself as a moderate, which helped him gain support in historically Republican areas.
Despite the close race, there will be no automatic runoff.
Mississippi’s election handbook and state law does not outline a process for contesting the results of a general election for the U.S. Senate.
However, according to Secretary of State Michael Watson, candidates can examine ballot materials after certification to look for irregularities.
From there, they can pursue legal challenges. It would be up to a court to order a recount.
