Senate candidate, has flipped Forrest County, a once reliably Republican county named for the Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest. With 97 percent of ballots counted, Colom led Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith 54 percent to 44 percent, reversing the 18-point advantage President Donald Trump secured in 2024 in Forrest County, which contains majority-Black Hattiesburg, home to the University of Southern Mississippi. Forrest County’s 29-point movement toward Democrats is an important local boost for Colom, although the statewide Senate race remained too close to call on Friday morning as officials processed outstanding ballots.
At the time of writing, The estimated that 96 percent of votes had been counted, with Colom leading Hyde-Smith by 1,813 votes, 466,775 to 464,962, or 49 percent to 48.9 percent. Independent candidate Ty Pinkins was taking about 2 percent statewide, a potentially consequential share in such a narrow contest. Speaking during a November 4 news conference in Jackson, Colom predicted that the outstanding ballots would ultimately deliver him the seat.
"I am very happy with where we stand," he told reporters. "I’m confident once the process lays out, where we are, where the ballots are, we’re gonna win." He also pledged to "protect the process" and ensure election law was followed. Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager Jake Monssen said in a public statement: "We remain confident that when every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted, Mississippians will have reelected Cindy Hyde-Smith." The campaign thanked election workers and said it was closely monitoring the remaining count.
The Forrest County result carries further historical weight as Colom seeks to become Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Blanche K. Bruce left office in 1881. It comes a year after Black Democrat Johnny DuPree flipped a Republican-held state Senate seat covering parts of Forrest and Lamar counties, defeating Anna Rush by 69.2 percent to 30.8 percent.
Newsweek emailed the Colom and Hyde-Smith campaigns for comment on Friday morning. Midterm elections frequently punish the party occupying the White House. Yet Mississippi was not expected to provide one of 2026’s closest contests.
Trump won the entire state by nearly 23 points in 2024, making Colom’s competitiveness a particularly striking expression of the national pressure on Republicans. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Tennessee slave trader who became a Confederate general, later served as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. Forrest County’s courthouse grounds encapsulate its unresolved history.
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