You can call him Senator-elect Scott Colom now…
“It’s not something that I did, y’all. It’s something that we did,” Colom said during his victory speech at Tougaloo College last night after he was declared the winner of Mississippi’s Senate race.
“All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this. I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we can show the country that Mississippi matters.”
The Associated Press called the race for Colom around 5 pm yesterday as more votes were counted and he continued to stretch his lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. He’ll be sworn in next year as Mississippi’s first Black United States senator since Reconstruction.
Hyde-Smith conceded the race last night in a video posted on social media…
“While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.”
Only a handful of votes separated the two candidates on election night more than a week ago, but Colom has slowly and steadily increased his lead, which the AP said yesterday was approaching 5,000 votes.
