For years, winning a United States Senate seat in Mississippi has provided hands-down, lead-pipe cinch job security.
The Senate became almost a nursing home as age and health issues caught up with most of Mississippi’s senators, but they kept getting reelected.
Incumbent Mississippi senators just did not get beat – until this past week when Democratic challenger Scott Colom’s improbable victory over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith.
A week after the Nov 3 general election, Colom, a district attorney in the Lowndes County area in north Mississippi, was declared the winner of the closely contested campaign. Around the time that The Associated Press called the race for Colom, Hyde-Smith, still the only woman elected to federal office in Mississippi, graciously conceded.
Colom’s victory is historic for numerous reasons. He is the first Black person elected through popular vote to the Senate from Mississippi and, for that matter, the first Black person elected to any statewide office in this state since Reconstruction.
Colom is also the first challenger to unseat a U.S. senator from Mississippi since 1942, when James. O. Eastland defeated Wall Doxey. “Big Jim” Eastland, as he was called, went on to serve until he retired in 1978.
The junior senator from Missisisppi during Eastland’s tenure was John Stennis, who served from 1947 until 1989.
After winning the office, Eastland and Stennis faced few serious challenges. Republican maverick Gil Carmichael of Meridian ran an aggressive campaign against Eastland in 1972, but in the end the incumbent won with 58% of the vote – a nail-biter historically speaking by Senate campaign standards in Mississippi.
When Eastland opted to step down in 1978, Republican U.S. Rep. Thad Cochran won the post with a plurality of the vote. Six years later, he faced Democrat William Winter.
Winter, who was finishing his gubernatorial tenure, wavered on whether he wanted to challenge Cochran, who was a friend, or try to become chancellor of University of Mississippi. In the end, Winter garnered only 39% of the vote in the Senate race and was not named chancellor.
For all practical purposes, Cochran did not face another serious challenge until 2014, when state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party favorite, nearly upset him in the Republican primary.
When Stennis, the last Democrat before Colom to win a Senate election in Mississippi, opted not to seek reelection in 1988, Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Lott defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Wayne Dowdy in a relatively close election.
Lott was never seriously challenged during his tenure that ended when he retired in 2007.
Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker was appointed by then-Gov. Haley Barbour to succeed Lott. Wicker defeated Democratic former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in a 2008 special election and has enjoyed relatively comfortable reelection efforts since then.
Such has not been the case for Hyde-Smith.
Hyde-Smith, a former Democratic state senator from Brookhaven, was in her second term as a Republican state agriculture and commerce commissioner when she was appointed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant to succeed Cochran, who also retired before his term ended.
As she was appointed, some, including many Washington insiders, questioned whether Bryant had chosen the strongest Republican, electorally speaking, to the important post.
She endured a tough battle in a nominally nonpartisan special election against McDaniel and Democratic former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Mississippi does not have runoffs in regular elections for full six-year terms in the U.S. Senate, but it does have them for special elections to fill unexpired terms. In a runoff, Hyde-Smith defeated Espy 53.6% to 46.4% in what was then the closest nonpartisan Senate race in the state’s modern era.
In 2020 with her political protector – Donald Trump – on the ballot, Hyde Smith garnered 54% of the vote against Espy in a tough rematch.
Going into the 2026 election, Hyde-Smith had to be thinking she would finally have an easy race. In fairness, Hyde-Smith’s loss might be as much a referendum on President Trump as it was on her. After all, he told people to vote like he was on the ballot.
Perhaps, other candidates could have defeated her this year. It has been a tough midterm election cycle for Republicans, even in normally ruby-red Mississippi.
But the fact remains, had it not been for Hyde-Smith single-handedly blocking Colom’s nomination to the federal judiciary by President Joe Biden, Colom would have been presiding as a judge in a lifetime appointment and would have never run for the Senate.
Now, based on Mississippi history, Colom may have a lifetime job as a United States senator.