Protein Picked! Scott Colom Makes Mississippi…
Source: Jackson State University / Getty
Mississippians had been told to decide another protein, but they determined to decide another senator instead!
In what will possible go down as one of the most historic moments in Mississippi historical past, Democrat Scott Colom has overwhelmed incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith for the U.S. Senate seat.
GWN confirmed Colom to be the winner of the race, making him the state’s first Democratic Senator in 4 a long time and the first Black senator since Reconstruction.
This is yet another Black wave in the blue tsunami that took over a little over a week in the past, when Democrats celebrated strong wins, gaining control of both the House and the Senate, and electing Black governors across the nation as nicely.
Colom’s victory consists of the fact that he flipped Forrest County, a Republican stronghold named after the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
From GWN:
Colom campaigned relentlessly as he sought to energize Black voters, who make up roughly 35% of the state’s citizens. He also labored to construct a coalition that consists of White, working-class Mississippians.
The win comes just a few years after Hyde-Smith blocked Colom’s nomination to the federal bench, although the Democrat had the backing of other Republicans, including Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi’s senior senator.
Hyde-Smith turned the first feminine US senator from Mississippi when she was appointed in 2018 to fill a emptiness. She went on to win a particular election later that 12 months and reelection in 2020.
The Associated Press is also calling the race for Colom, noting that “Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations, and it will echo through the country as well. The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.”
As NewsOne beforehand reported, by “midday Tuesday, Colom maintained a 2,536-vote advantage over Hyde-Smith in the unofficial tally, according to the Associated Press. But two important deadlines arrived Tuesday afternoon that could affect the outcome: resolving provisional ballots cast because of questions about voters’ eligibility and receiving mail-in absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day.”
Once those votes are accounted for, officers in all 82 Mississippi counties have until the close of business Friday to certify their election outcomes.
And there’s lots driving on those remaining ballots.
The largest quantity of excellent votes Tuesday had been in Hinds County, a Democratic stronghold surrounding the state capital of Jackson, with another vital batch remaining in neighboring Holmes County, which is even more reliably blue. The geographic distribution of those excellent votes has continued to favor Colom, the Washington Post studies.
This is a major victory for a Black man in what Mother Jones refers to as a state that was “once the epicenter of Jim Crow.”
More from Mother Jones:
This was the state where Jim Crow was the most violent and repressive. It was where Emmett Till was lynched, Evers was assassinated, and the younger civil rights staff James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. There had been 581 documented lynchings during the Jim Crow period, more than any other state.
“Just to mention Mississippi, to cross the state line from Alabama and go there, it just created all types of problems in my own mind,” the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis once said. “It seemed like when you just drove over the state line, something happened to the air, to the environment. It was a psychological thing… Alabama is bad; Alabama is hell. But to go to Mississippi at the time was worse than hell.”
Change doesn’t always come rapidly or loudly, but it reveals up at just the precise time.
Scott Colom is just the precise man at the precise time.
Over right here at NewsOne, we’re proud of Senator-elect Colom and congratulate him on his well-earned victory.
SEE ALSO:
A Black Man Just Flipped A Mississippi County Named After KKK Founder
Mississippi Election Shows The Power Of Black Voters
Monique Judge
Managing Editor, NewsOne
mjudge@ionedigital.com
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The post Protein Picked! Scott Colom Makes Mississippi History As First Black U.S. Senator Since Reconstruction, Southern State Supporters Blue-ly Bask In Barrier-Breaking Victory appeared first on GWN.
