US elections: For the first time since 1982: Democrat wins Senate seat in Mississippi

Mississippi is considered a reliable Republican stronghold, but discontent with President Trump is helping the Democrats. More than a week after the election, there is now clarity there.

Democrat Scott Colom has prevailed in the tight race for the Senate seat in the southern US state of Mississippi.

Jackson. For the first time in more than four decades, a Democrat has won an election for the US Senate in the southern US state of Mississippi. Attorney Scott Colom narrowly won the race against Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, as the AP news agency reported a week after the vote based on vote counts and exit polls. Colom will be the state's first black senator since the late 19th century.

This means that the Democrats will expand their majority in the Senate to 55 of the 100 seats from January. The race in Alaska, in which the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, is currently narrowly in the lead, is also still open.

Mississippi is a Republican-leaning state in which the current great dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump's policies had opened up opportunities for the Democrats. In the 2024 presidential election, Trump was ahead of Democrat Kamala Harris in Mississippi by more than 20 percentage points. During the election campaign, Trump, who wanted to concentrate on the close races in the midterms, also came to appear.

Before the election on November 3rd, Colom gave his opponent the name “Cindy High Prices”. The sharp increase in the cost of living was a central issue in the election campaign, even beyond Mississippi. According to surveys, a large proportion of voters saw Trump's policies as a key price driver, including the Iran war, which many cited as the reason for the significantly higher gasoline prices.

In 1875, previously enslaved senator made history

The state has the highest proportion of black people, at almost 37 percent of the population. Still, there hasn't been a black U.S. senator from the state in over a century. In 1875, the previously enslaved Blanche Kelso Bruce entered the US Senate and became the first African American to serve a full term in the state legislature.

The social position of black Americans and the protection of the right to vote played a role in the election campaign. Colom, for example, criticized Republican plans to redistrict the electoral districts in order to influence the result in their favor.