Senate race seems like the perfect place for a political upset this year, an assertion President Trump's Monday rally there seems to support. It has the highest share of Black voters in the country, at close to 40%. It's a rural, agriculture-heavy state that is also among the poorest, so higher prices are felt harder.
But President Trump won the state by 23 points in 2024, and it's extremely racially polarized, meaning not enough white voters back Democrats for the party to win statewide. In a midterm environment that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Senate races in conservative-heavy states like Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska, and a last-minute flood of cash to Kansas, the Magnolia state has been left off of many peoples' radar — and largely out of campaign investments. Scott Colom, a district attorney and the Democratic Senate nominee in Mississippi, told NPR that's a mistake.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause, we've been a betrayed cause," he said. "The Democratic Party has not been trying to win Mississippi. Let's stop kidding ourselves, right?
They spent hundreds of millions of dollars in other states. They spent almost nothing in Mississippi." Colom is challenging incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who blocked his nomination to be a federal judge during the Biden administration. In the final weeks of the election, both parties have rushed to spend millions of dollars in Mississippi, as national polling shows a pathway where Democratic enthusiasm and elevated Black turnout, combined with fewer Republican base voters and defections from the party, has made deep red races deeply competitive this cycle.
At a rally for Colom in his hometown high school gym Thursday, about a thousand people showed up to hear the candidate — joined by former Vice President Kamala Harris — give his closing message. Many attendees expressed optimism for his campaign coupled with a vibe of feeling down about those in power, regardless of party affiliation – citing the war in Iran, rising fuel costs and dissatisfaction with Trump's second term. That includes Celestine Rice, who said many people were realizing a need to focus on bringing change to the political system and representation.
"Before, we didn't realize how bad it was, but now it's obvious," she said. "The moral compass of this country is gone." Rice said many people took for granted an era where it seemed the country used to be more focused on taking care of its citizens and now they see that "big money, it doesn't trickle down like they said." The brunt of the Democratic money and manpower headed to Mississippi is driven by a growing number of those who argue the party's future runs through the South, including Harris, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
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