Mississippi Picks Another Senator Making Scott Colom the First Black Person to Hold the Seat Since Reconstruction

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.

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