Scott Colom will defeat GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a major upset to become the first Democrat that voters in deep-red Mississippi have elected to the chamber in more than four decades, CNN’s Decision Desk projects.

Colom, 43, also will become the first Black person elected to statewide office in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era. His win in a Republican stronghold underscores the grim environment the GOP faced in the midterms, as voters grappled with a war overseas and high prices at home, and further expands Democrats’ incoming Senate majority.

Colom, a local district attorney, centered his campaign on affordability issues, labeling Hyde-Smith “Cindy High Prices.”

The campaign also produced one of the most attention-getting ads of the midterms by mocking a Hyde-Smith comment that there are “so many proteins to choose from” when she was asked about rising beef prices.

“Pick another protein? She done lost her damn mind,” one woman said in the video. “I’d rather pick another senator.”

As the race tightened, a parade of high-profile Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, campaigned with Colom in the final weeks of the election, and Democratic super PACs began spending money on his behalf.

President Donald Trump also traveled to the state to rally Republican voters.

Colom led Hyde-Smith in the days after the midterm elections by a razor-thin margin as vote counting continued in the state. Local officials had to vet thousands of provisional ballots cast by voters in the high turnout election.

He told CNN that voters showed that “Mississippi matters.”

The-CNN-Wire
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